Tag Archives: Ken Burns

A Son of Farmville, Richmond, and Reflections on Vietnam

I’ve been watching Ken Burns and Lynn Novak’s new Vietnam War documentary and have found it a riveting telling of the story. This afternoon I streamed the last episode (having missed it when it originally aired), and am still processing … Continue reading

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Happy 100th Birthday, Shelby Foote

Shelby Foote would have been 100 years old today. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, on November 17, 1916, he died on June 28, 2005 at the age of 88 from a heart attack following a pulmonary embolism. Foote was best known … Continue reading

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The Ken Burns Effect

Lest anyone underestimate the importance of Ken Burns’ The Civil War, take a second to study this graph:

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Thoughts on Ken Burns: Chris Kolakowski

This series really brought the war to life in a human way for me. It still holds up all these years later, and will do so for a long time to come. In that sense it belongs in the category … Continue reading

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Thoughts on Ken Burns’ The Civil War: Dan Davis

I know there has been a lot of discussion on this blog and others this week on the re-release of Ken Burns’ The Civil War. I know that the documentary means a lot of things to a lot of people, but I … Continue reading

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Ken Burns From the ECW Archives

As we continue this week to explore the legacy of Ken Burns’ The Civil War as it airs on PBS for its 25th anniversary, consider taking a dip into ECW’s archives for a look at what we’ve written about it … Continue reading

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Eastern Theater versus Western Theater: Where the Civil War Was Won and Lost: The Conclusion to a Series

The conclusion of a series. This series was put together from one of my extended graduate school research papers. The sources used were the current research between 2007-2008, obviously the historiography of the Civil War expands on a monthly basis, … Continue reading

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Does the American Civil War Need a Theme Song?

Like so many, I have been captivated by the mournfully lovely tune “Ashokan Farewell.” I am sure most of us first heard it when we were watching Ken Burns’s The Civil War, and wondered about it. I knew I had … Continue reading

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Telling History vs. Making Art: “Story is a central component of ‘history'”

Part eight in a series The ability to evoke emotion easily stands out as The Civil War’s greatest strength: From its opening shot of a canon silhouetted against a fire-orange sky and the use of the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote … Continue reading

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Telling History vs. Making Art: Communicating “the incommunicable experience of war”

Part seven in a series “We have shared the incommunicable experience of war,” Oliver Wendell Holmes says at the beginning of Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War. Burns could not have picked a more appropriate quote to start his film … Continue reading

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