The war's portrayal has
always been shaped by contemporary cultural mores, and commemorative
documentaries demonstrate just how much the relationship between the creators
and consumers of popular culture has changed over the last fifty years.
For the fiftieth anniversary of 1914, the BBC
commissioned the twenty-six part series The
Great War, based around archive footage and featuring interviews with
veterans. There was an authoritative narrative voice, but no presenters. For the eightieth
anniversary, it collaborated with an American television company on a
six-part series littered with academic talking-heads. For the ninetieth anniversary,
it has had a range of TV presenter-celebrities - among them Michael Palin,
Dan Snow, Natalie Cassidy and Eamonn Holmes - on a journey of discovery of
their families' military connections. These invariably culminate next to graves and memorials in a display of the right
kind of televisual emotion at the moment the formula
demands and the audience has come to expect.
The focus of these programmes - family history
as a means of understanding the past - is worthy of note in itself. It is
indicative of the dramatic growth of family history as a leisure interest,
perhaps in response to the sense of dislocation inherent in modernity
tcornett on 05 Apr 16Youtube Playlist The Civil War and Reconstruction - 1850 -1861 Discover how the issue of slavery came to dominate American politics, and how political leaders struggled and failed to resolve the growing crisis in the nation. A House Divided: The Road to Civil War, 1850-1861 is a course that begins by examining how generations of historians have explained the crisis of the Union. After discussing the institution of slavery and its central role in the southern and national economies, it turns to an account of the political and social history of the 1850s. It traces how the issue of the expansion of slavery came to dominate national politics, and how political leaders struggled, unsuccessfully, to resolve the growing crisis. We will examine the impact of key events such as Bleeding Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, and end with the dissolution of the Union in the winter of 1860-61. This course is part of the series, The Civil War and Reconstruction, which introduces students to the most pivotal era in American history. The Civil War transformed the nation by eliminating the threat of secession and destroying the institution of slavery. It raised questions that remain central to our understanding of ourselves as a people and a nation - the balance of power between local and national authority, the boundaries of citizenship, and the meanings of freedom and equality. The series will examine the causes of the war, the road to secession, the conduct of the Civil War, the coming of emancipation, and the struggle after the war to breathe meaning into the promise of freedom for four million emancipated slaves. One theme throughout the series is what might be called the politics of history - how the world in which a historian lives affects his or her view of the past, and how historical interpretations reinforce or challenge the social order of the present. Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor o
