About this item
Ken Burns' Emmy Award-winning documentary brings to life America's most destructive and defining conflict. The "Civil War" is the saga of celebrated generals and ordinary soldiers, a heroic and transcendent president, and a country that had to divide itself in two in order to become one."The stage is set for war as the nation begins to tear apart. Opposition by the North to slavery in the South fuels a bitter debate, and the country wrestles with conflicts between the Union and states' rights. Commanding center stage are towering figures - Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert E Lee. From Harper's Ferry to Fort Sumter, the first chapters unfold in a conflict from which there will be no turning back."--Container.
About the Author
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz, Statue of Liberty; Huey Long; Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery; Frank Lloyd Wright; Mark Twain; Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson; The War; The National Parks: America's Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; and, most recently, Jackie Robinson.
Future projects include films on the Vietnam War, the history of country music, Ernest Hemingway, and the history of stand-up comedy.
Ken's films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including fourteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
