THE AMERICAN

The Hidden History of Daniel J. Boorstin and His Twentieth Century

University of Georgia Press — 8/1/26

“Daniel Boorstin was one of the great American historians. In this remarkable blend of memoir and biography, his son, Jon, traces an extraordinary life through family history, archival discovery, and personal memory. The American is beautifully written, richly researched, and utterly compelling.”
—Nick Witham, author of Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America

The American

Author Jon Boorstin

I have the blessing and the burden of being Daniel J. Boorstin’s son. He was a ‘distinguished historian’ when that meant something: the world cared what he thought about America and Americans, and took it out on me.

I fled from Harvard to Hollywood, blessed land of Daniel J. Boorstin ignorance. There I earned the attention of world class Tinsel Town tutors, thanks to skills I’d learned surviving Daniel J. Boorstin. The designer Charles Eames godfathered me into documentary filmmaking, enlisting me to make this film about an unknown architect named Frank Gehry, and this Oscar®-nominated film on the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Robert Redford made me a producer on All The President’s Men, and its director Alan Pakula also directed the thriller I wrote, Dream Lover.

I morphed into writing novels, from Pay or Play (“the definitive sendup of Hollywood” – Publishers Weekly) to The Newsboys’ Lodging-house, in which the philosopher William James discovers his Will to Believe (winner of the New York Society Library Book Award for Historical Fiction). William James, my father’s favorite philosopher.

I finally sat down and faced Daniel J. Boorstin head on.

Read an Excerpt from The Preface

Sam Boorstin at 13 when he tended his own store.

Sam Boorstin at law school. (Photo Sam Boorstin)

Sam’s friend, Leo Frank, and Leo’s love, Lucille (Courtesy of the Cuba Family Archives for Southern Jewish History at the Breman Museum)

A popular postcard of Leo Frank's lynching

Tulsa’s leading businessmen. A place for young men. The dog’s name was Tramp. (Courtesy of Tulsa Historical Society & Museum)

Tulsa Massacre, day after (Tulsa World)

Young Tulsan Daniel, c. 1914

Baggy-eyed Dan caught between his parents, proud Dora and confident Sam, 1936.

Daniel J. Boorstin being sworn in as the Librarian of Congress

PRAISE FOR ‘THE AMERICAN’

“When novelist and filmmaker Jon Boorstin turns his talent to biography, his storytelling skill is the secret sauce. And because this is a biography of an influential American historian—his father, Daniel J. Boorstin—the way it refracts American history through family history makes its telling a moving and wildly original work.”

— Marty Kaplan, director, the Norman Lear Center at USC 

“Lawyer Samuel Boorstin saw the nation at its worst and looked away. His son, historian Daniel Boorstin, explored the nation’s virtues in prize-winning books that celebrate our better angels. Now comes Jon Boorstin, grandson and son, not just to tell his forebears’ stories but to grapple with their meaning. The American is a brave and searching triumph.”

— Steve Oney, author of And the Dead Shall Rise and On Air

“This is a hopeful book for the post-Trump era, a reminder of how we once believed, and can still believe, that what binds us together is greater than what divides us.”

— Steven J. Ross, author of Pulitzer-finalist Hitler in Los Angeles 

Find Jon Boorstin on:

Facebook - Goodreads - Indiebound - Los Angeles Review of Books