Editorial Review:Description:Hailed as a documentary masterpiece without parallel, Ken Burns' filmed chronicle of America's most terrible and destructive conflict will hold you in thrall as it portrays the strategies and action of the war's famous battles, and tells the stories of illustrious generals and ordinary field soldiers, politicians and rogues, heroes and a beleaguered President. Winner of two Emmy Awards, the series begins by looking at the fateful causes of the war that led to the firing on Fort Sumter, to the devastating battles of Shiloh, Antietam and Gettysburg, climaxing with Lee's surrender and the assassination of President Lincoln. Vivid photographic imagery and narration by many of today's most acclaimed performers highlight this epic program. Titles are: 'The Cause of 1862,' 'A Very Bloody Affair 1862,' 'Forever Free 1862,' 'Simply Murder 1863,' 'The Universe of Battle 1863,' 'Valley of the Shadow of Death 1864,' 'Most Hallowed Ground 1864,' 'War Is All Hell 1865,' and 'The Better Angles of Our Nature 1865 .'
Amazon.com essential video:The most successful public-television miniseries in American history, the 11-hour
Civil War didn't just captivate a nation, reteaching to us our history in narrative terms; it actually also invented a new film language taken from its creator. When people describe documentaries using the 'Ken Burns approach,' its style is understood: voice-over narrators reading letters and documents dramatically and stating the writer's name at their conclusion, fresh live footage of places juxtaposed with still images (photographs, paintings, maps, prints), anecdotal interviews, and romantic musical scores taken from the era he depicts.
The Civil War uses all of these devices to evoke atmosphere and resurrect an event that many knew only from stale history books. While Burns is a historian, a researcher, and a documentarian, he's above all a gifted storyteller, and it's his narrative powers that give this chronicle its beauty, overwhelming emotion, and devastating horror. Using the words of old letters, eloquently read by a variety of celebrities, the stories of historians like Shelby Foote and rare, stained photos, Burns allows us not only to relearn and finally understand our history, but also to feel and experience it.
--Dave McCoy
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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A Great History Lessons, But Lacks The Emotional Punch Of "The War"
Ken Burns' epic documentary about the Civil War is perhaps the greatest and most all-encompassing history lesson of the North/South conflict that has ever been put on film or page. Not only is every important detail of the war covered (and in such a way that the details are interesting and important, not boring), but two entire episodes are devoted to the build-up and aftermath of the conflict. Essentially, if you were teaching a class on the Civil War, this video is all you would need, as it both conveys the vital information of the war, and does so in a way that doesn't stagnate. In essence, a very tight, well-produced series.
The only reason I give this set four stars out of five, though, is that it lacks (althouht through no fault of its own) the emotional punch of Burns' more recent "The War" (World War II) series. Such things as personal interviews and live video could obviously not be obtained from the 1860s, but the reading of letters and still photographs doesn't quite measure up. The best example I can give of this is that while watching the Civil War series I found myself treating it as one extended history class session, while "The War" was almost more of a dramatic event (what with the live interviews and video footage).
So, although the Civil War documentary by Ken Burns is a brilliant work of research and cinematography, I can only give it a four-star rating due to its lacks of live video footage or emotionally moving personal interviews. I do, however, strongly recommend this series to anyone wanting to learn a bit more about the most brutal war in United States history. You may not need the tissue box while watching this series (unlike "The War"), but I guarantee you will come away with a much more solid understanding of the events that caused, prolonged, and ended the American Civil War.
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As good as it gets.
* This is another great documentary accredited to Ken Burns. Nicely done and extremely informative. I purchased this for my wife who loves it and has watched it several times over. ...
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A true masterpiece, regardless of historical reservations!
Regardless of historical reservations and allegations of bias from both North and South, I regard this work of Ken Burns as a true masterpiece. I bought my first set on VHS several years ago at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and played it through a dozen or more times. I went to the expense of having this set transferred to new tapes for my VHS player here in England. Having heard in 2002 that it was available on DVD and that the whole series had been digitally enhanced, I purchased the same and I can vouch for its much improved picture quality. I have played the DVD series several times, too, and I never tire of it (nor of the separate music CD, which is one of my all-time favourites).
Why do I love the series? Well, despite (as I have said) historical reservations on my part and allegations of bias from both North and South (as I have read), Mr Burns has gathered together over many years the most remarkable collection of old still pictures, interviews with such as the superb Shelby Foote, extremely beautiful modern scenery film footage and stills, inimitable commentary by David McCullough, and, most especially, ancient film footage of such as the reunion of veterans at Gettysburg in 1938 (the last mentioned brings tears to my eyes to this day). Mr Burns has made a wonderful whole of wonderful parts and has done a wonderfully impressive technical job.
And my historical reservations? Well, I am British and, in a British tradition dating from well before the American 'Civil War' or 'The War for Southern Independence,' I am a Southern sympathiser. I feel 'at home' when visiting such as Virginia to this day and I regret very much the loss of much of what went with the dreadful wind from the North of 1861 - 1865. I have many Yankee friends but we mostly steer clear of discussion of the Northern aggression under the appalling law-bender Lincoln and the religious hypocrites at his back. I tend, therefore, not to believe any medium that portrays the old Southerners as other than victims. This magnificent video or DVD set does not do this: it makes an attempt at balance - maybe successfully, maybe not.
Thankfully, the South has 'risen' again in a manner of speaking, but it's a shame that more than a century and so many lives were lost by succeeding and successive generations of Dixie's people.
Having got that off my British chest, I urge those who have not seen the PBS TV series, the VHS videos or the DVD set to rush out and get them/it. Of course, you don't need to rush out: just order the lot from my friends at Amazon!
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Great piece of work; good start for beginning historians.
* This series is THE definitive documentary on the American Civil War - it's the first of it's kind in style and content and powerfully evocative of the spirit of the time. However, there are some inconsistencies which become apparent to the attentive viewer. For example, statements made throughout the film representing North and South waiver between certainty of Northern perserverance and widespread dissension regarding Lincoln's leadership - points which are not in agreement and do not make a cohesive statement about the momentum of the Union. And as 'CenterMan' states in his review, this documentary has a decidedly 'Eastern' tilt and emphasis, probably because Burns is himself a New Englander. The Western states and territories played an extremely important part in the war both militarily and economically, but this is not touched on. To back up another of 'CenterMan's points, the armies of the West, and ESPECIALLY the Generals of the West, were utterly essential to the evolution of the war and warefare in general by the North, from an Eastern generals' stalemate to a frontiersmens' sweep. Most all of the generals who were made famous by the Civil War, both North and South, earned their stripes and first practiced their military trade serving together as field officers in the Mexican-American War twenty years prior, and in fact the North's superior use of artillery throughout the war was largely the result of methods first tried and learned by Yankee gunners and officers at Vera Cruz and Mexico City. Both Sherman and Grant, who made broad sweeping movements using entire army groups and army corps became familiar with these tactics in the wide open expanses of the Mexico and then the Indian territories, and used them to devastating effect against the flash and elan of the Confederates. Also, the political and financial importance of California, Utah, and Oregon, which supplied desperately needed cash and gold to the Union in spite of a large seccessionist element, is completely overlooked by Burns. This seems to point out a kind of misperception among many Easterners, both then and now, that the United States is centered on and revolves around their section of the country. It is a serious misperception and is a major reason the rift between North and South reached the breadth and depth that it did. Burns focuses on the traditional military and socially emotional issues of the war, which are shown anew, but he does not cover the cornerstones of demographics (the huge disparity in population growth between North and South, in birthrates and immigration) agriculture, finance, or industry, (in particular steel and the railroads), both before and during the war, which are essential to a broad understanding of the Civil War. Ultimately this documentary is an excellent introductory showpiece and is thoroughly engrossing, and should hopefully inspire students of the subject to probe deeper into it. It is an excellent piece of art and is worth seeing and owning. ...
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Great but misleading
Very entertaining, a masterpiece really. However, it perpetuates the myth that the abolition of slavery was at the heart of the war. So many facts run counter to this notion. For example, until well into the war, the North made it clear that it would welcome the South back into the Union with slavery intact. When Lincoln emancipated the slaves, he specifically did so only in the rebel states, leaving out the slave states that were loyal to the Union. This clearly indicates that this was a war tactic, pretty much the same one the British employed in the Revolutionary War. (If Britain had won that war, would they have justified it later on the basis of abolishing slavery?) Then, during Reconstruction, slavery was basically reimposed in the South in all but name, and the North did nothing about it. Why? Because the North had already achieved what it really wanted: reunification. I.e., slavery was no problem as long as the country stayed together, with Washington in firm control of all of the country's territory. If you think about it, what else could Lincoln have done when the South seceded? Letting those states go would have set a lousy precedent for all of the other states and probably would have fatally weakened the country ("give us what we want, or we'll secede like the South did"). In fact, Jefferson Davis himself faced this issue in the Confederacy: how do you keep a set of states together after endorsing the idea that any state has the right to secede basically whenever it wants? It's less romantic, but it makes much more sense to think of Union at the core of the war, not slavery.
