Word: boorstin
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DIED. DANIEL J. BOORSTIN, 89, historian and public servant; in Washington. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for The Americans: The Democratic Experience, a cultural history of post--Civil War America, and spent 13 years as Librarian of Congress. Famous for the enlightened skepticism with which he regarded popular culture, he warned, "Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models...
From 1969 to 1973, Boorstin served as the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of History and Technology. He became librarian of Congress...
...Georgia-born Boorstin, who was also a Crimson editor, enrolled at Harvard. He was named a Rhodes Scholar and after graduation attended Balliol College at Oxford University. In 1940, he received a doctorate from Yale University...
...librarian, Boorstin tried to make the world’s largest library more attractive to the public. Under his direction, the library installed picnic tables and benches and established a center to encourage reading. He held the post until 1987, when he resigned to focus on his passion: writing about history...
...Boorstin is survived by his wife, Ruth, his three sons and six grandchildren...