During an interview published in  the January 2020 issue of AARP Magazine, Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis was asked if she talks to her 10-year-old daughter about the differences between their childhoods. She ended her thoughtful answer with, “And I’m not trying to say that I’m making her grow up passive or milquetoast. But empathy is in short supply today.”  Empathy; one of the many important bases that veteran CBS news reporter and anchorman, Dan Rather, along with Emmy Award winning filmmaker and journalist, Elliot Kirshner touch in their very timely book,  What Unites Us: Reflections On Patriotism (Algonquin $22.95 9781616207823).  This book came out in 2017, but it could have been written in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 insurrection riot on our Capitol, encouraged by “you-know-who”.

Shining a mirror upon us and our democracy’s nervous times, these reflections are like a Social Studies class refresher course (especially if you went to public school  in a major market, prior to the 1990s). It is where memoir meets history book.

Back in my television watching days, I always made time to tune into Mr. Rather anchoring the CBS Evening News broadcast when I could.  He was the logical successor to Walter Cronkite and ranks among my favorite anchors with Chet Hutley & David Brinkley, Douglas Edwards, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Max Robinson and Connie Chung.

The gentlemen take us on a cautionary journey, with his early 20th century rural Houston, Texas roots the backdrop against which he reminds and teaches how our country, The United States of America has been better; falters and then steps back up when non-partisanship prevails, cementing all of us together, against many odds. I loved when he challenged some who conveniently try to say they are more “patriotic” than others.

I found the chapter, “Steady”, most enlightening.  Especially page 259, where he writes about the Korean War and its effect upon our country, to be the most enlightening and insightful because that is the conflict which is rarely talked about and which was not addressed in-depth during my school days. Maybe because I was to young to have experienced it in real time, in college by the time it was written about in text books and because I had a real close uncle who served there.

At times it seems that he is speaking directly to the 45th “President” and his ilk without naming names, not harping upon them, but giving equal thought to both ends of the political and philosophical spectrum as only a well-traveled professional broadcaster and news reporter can.  His reporting, and that of his colleagues was never “fake”, as some of the privileged characters who he alludes to would have us believe.

If ever our country needed a dose of true history and togetherness encouragement from one of its citizens, it is now.  Rather’s book should be required educational reading across the land in public, voucher, charter and parochial schools (all of which he writes about); churches, cafeterias, coffee shops, colleges and private clubs (with discussions to follow)!  My rating is five-out-of-five American flags.