The Civil War (miniseries)

More than 39 million viewers tuned in to at least one episode, and viewership averaged more than 14 million viewers each evening, making it the most-watched program ever to air on PBS. It was awarded more than 40 major television and film honors. A companion book to the documentary was released shortly after the series aired.^[1]


The film's production techniques were groundbreaking for the time, and spawned film techniques such as the Ken Burns effect. Its theme song, "Ashokan Farewell" is widely acclaimed. The series was extremely influential, and serves as the main source of knowledge about the Civil War to many Americans. However, some historians have criticized the film for not delving into the subsequent, racially contentious Reconstruction era,^[2] and having an all-white production team.^[3]


The series was rebroadcast in June 1994^[4] as a lead-up to Burns's next series Baseball, then remastered for its 12th anniversary in 2002, although it remained in standard definition resolution. To commemorate the film's 25th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, the film underwent a complete digital restoration to high-definition format in 2015.

Reception and awards[edit]

The series received more than forty major film and television awards, including two Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild of America, People's Choice Award, Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, D.W. Griffith Award, and the US$50,000 Lincoln Prize, among dozens of others.


The series sparked a major renewal of interest in the Civil War. It was widely acclaimed for its skillful depiction and retelling of the Civil War events, and also for drawing huge numbers of viewers into a new awareness of the historical importance of the conflict. Before the series, the Civil War had receded in popular historical consciousness since its 1960s centennial. Following the series, there was a sharp upturn in popular books and other works about the Civil War.^[16]


Robert Brent Toplin in 1996 wrote Ken Burns's The Civil War: Historians Respond, which included essays from critical academic historians who felt their topics of interest were not covered in enough detail and responses from Ken Burns and others involved in the series' production.


The series has been criticized for perceived historical inaccuracies, since it focuses mostly on the battles of the Civil War to the detriment of other areas. Some also believe it provides a weak or faulty explanation of the causes of the war. While academic historians concur that the war was fought to preserve slavery, Burns presented Shelby Foote's framing of that dispute as a "failure to compromise".^[17][2][3] Though Foote was a journalist and novelist rather than a trained historian, he was given more screen time than any other commentator. The fact that Burns himself was not a historian, nor were most of his production team, has similarly led to accusations that his series did not contain a thorough enough historical overview of its subject. That most of them were also white men has also been fingered for a lack of coverage of women, blacks, or Reconstruction. The series has also been criticized for propagating the Lost Cause of the Confederacy ideology. Because Burns' documentary has been so influential, and serves as the main source of knowledge about the Civil War for many Americans, some critics fear it has perpetuated this discredited view.^[2][3]