The Civil War 25th Anniversary Edition - Restored for 2015 [Region 2 UK Version][DVD]

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Let's be clear about slavery - the ancient Egyptians probably enslaved the Jews, the Romans kept slaves in the countries they conquered and even forced them to kill each other for fun, Muslim Empires in North Africa kept slaves, even raiding the South Coast of England for White Slaves, the Japanese and Chinese Empires had sex slaves (Geishas, "Comfort Women", and Concubines), Black North African tribes enslaved each other. It's been a feature of human history for thousands of years. Of course this does not make it right, but that is the historical context. Yet in today's society 99% of the media and Hollywood are only concerned with the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In the film Gladiator with Russell Crowe, people enjoy the scenes of gladiatorial combat and death, apparently not bothered with seeing slavery in action in the Roman Empire.The big point is the only way you can look at history in a sensible way is to place it in the context of the times, rather than character assassinating every historical figure based on today's moral standards. The latter is just a nonsense, juvenile approach.The great power of this documentary is that it largely achieves this balance and context. I particularly enjoyed the contributions by Shelby Foote, who clearly has incredible empathy for the ordinary fighting man and a great strategic understanding of the various generals (on both sides).Overall an excellent documentary series. If you like history you will love it. I would even rate it as the second best documentary series I've seen, after the UK Series "The World at War".

Ordered the dvd, it arrived the very next day..Actually recorded it almost twenty years ago, so decided to buy the dvd and complete the collection. A good quality product.

really enjoying seeing this again

Although it could have been shorter, overall the effect of all the photographs and the fairly good commentary is ... what a sad affair the American Civil War was. All those deaths particularly on the Confederate side in support of a silly cause. One thing that jars with these discs is that each part - two to a disc has a tedious beginning and an even more tedious end, telling us who produced it, who eg the film processing lab technicians were. It repeats and repeats. Why not produce few discs and get all this at one big tedious end credit session?

If you’re interested in the American civil war this dvd is a must buy.

I’ve read and read general histories of this war and a lot of biographies of the generals and Lincoln of course, but this tv series somehow manages to bring it all to life in spite of relying on photographs. The video footage of veterans in the 20th century are truly amazing- those ghostly but sprightly figures often with long beards make you want to keep reading and watching anything connected to this fascinating but grim war that gave us the template for WWI. Brilliant series with wonderful interviews all- round with a handful of articulate writers and historians

We are lucky indeed that this magnificent series was made when it was. Although it is at root a celebration of the victory of the Union and freedom - flawed as it was - it treats the soldiers and civilians of the South as humans too and does not ignore the courage of the former and the suffering of the latter. I fear it would not find backing today when the Zeitgeist requires that the Southerners be written out of history.The range of pictorial sources is phenomenal and the commentary Is fascinating; particularly Shelby Foote who manages to see the best in his South but be opposed to slavery; quite a feat! The script is, I think, largely based on McPherson, which guarantees a fundamentally pro-Union position.All in all, a wonderful series.

Très agréable à regarder, à condition de bien posséder la langue anglaise. Il faut surtout acheter cette version remastérisée, il existe une version en langue française que je ne conseille pas, tellement elle est mauvaise, d'après ce que j'ai pu voir sur Internet.J' ai eu juste un petit souci avec le sixième disque, qui ne démarre pas facilement, mais mon lecteur de DVD est très bon marché, c'est un lecteur externe USB qui me permet de lire les DVD sur mon PC grâce au logiciel VLC, peut-être qu'avec un bon lecteur ce petit problème disparaîtrait.

Ho visto tutto il documentario sulla PBS, qualche anno fa. I documentari di Ken Burns sono fuori dal comune. Questo sulla Guerra Civile Americana è eccezionale, lo raccomando vivamente a chiunque voglia arricchirsi il cervello con un pezzo di storia toccato solo marginalmente dai programmi scolastici. Purtroppo, la spedizione da parte del venditore distribuucom non mi è mai arrivata. Quindi 5 stelle all'articolo, 0 al distributore

Beste Präsentation von geschichte, die es je gab. Jetzt auch noch mit gutem Bild und Ton.