Ric Burns’ documentary New York shows that New NL. was run by the mammoth Dutch West India Co. The city remained dedicated to the godless buck as it became British and then American.

America was built by people who came here to believe in something. America was built by people who came here for the right to believe in nothing. And two upcoming PBS documentaries are aptly paired not simply because each comes from one of the documentarian brothers Ken and Ric Burns…