I've seen some of his other documentaries, like The Vietnam war and have recently been interested in learning more about the American Civil War. I am aware there are issues in terms of accuracy and perspective regarding The Vietnam War, although I found it very very interesting and engrossing despite keeping that in mind.
I was thinking of watch his Civil War documentary, but before making the time commitment, is it worth watching? I'm not American so I haven't really grown up with much beyond a few pages in a textbook on the subject. Will I learn valuable information about the conflict, or will it mostly give me a misinformed picture of the conflict? Or perhaps somewhere in between (ie. it seems like I won't learn a lot about the nuance of the political situation in both North and South, but the information on battles themselves and military is decent)?
u/Georgy_K_Zhukov did a pretty good summary of the current opinion on Burns' film.
It's been a while since I first saw it, and when I saw it I did like it. The basic narrative of the battles does not have too many errors , and there are great quotes from diaries and letters. But even years ago, it was obvious that it was avoiding some very hard, difficult facts. The South had a brutal and very profitable agricultural economy based on slavery, and it was so profitable that the South was willing to use armed insurrection and violence against other US citizens in order to keep it. That was the cause of the war, and the reason it kept going. If Burns had faced this squarely, his film would not be as pleasant to watch. The gentle Memphis voice of Shelby Foote could not have been so omnipresent ( though I loved it, as a Southerner myself, hearing Foote's voice is like sitting on a porch back home). Probably, without Foote and without so much time in accounts of heroic Confederates, it would have had to be shorter. But it would have been better.