When it was first broadcast on PBS, thirty years ago this September, The Civil War was an unprecedented cultural event: a history documentary that not only won Emmys and Grammys, but was mentioned on Twin Peaks, parodied on Saturday Night Live, and immortalized in New Yorker cartoons. Forum: The Future of Civil War Era StudiesĬonfederate flags are coming down, statues are being toppled, Lady Antebellum has lost the “Antebellum,” and the Dixie Chicks have lost the “Dixie.” But the reckoning that’s been sweeping the United States in recent months has left one Civil War monument strangely untouched: the Ken Burns documentary.Reconstruction in Public History and Memory at the Sesquicentennial: A Roundtable Discussion.Maintaining a Radical Vision of African Americans in the Age of Freedom.
The Civil War and State-Building: A Reconsideration.Forum: The Future of Reconstruction Studies.
