Tells the story of the legacy of the American Civil War, the ways in which the Civil War is still felt and seen in American society and culture, from foreign policy to pop cultures, from regional differences and civil rights to music, literature, and American humor.—Ross Spears

The American Civil War was the most cataclysmic event in American history--600,000 deaths, ruined cities, scorched countryside, and social revolution. It is the great and central event of our history, having captured popular and scholarly interest like no other event in our past. Historians call the Civil War our first "modern war." It ushered in the tools of death and destruction that have been developed so masterfully in modern times; and thanks to General Sherman, it began the ominous strategy of "War on the Civilian," a concept fully developed in Hiroshima and Vietnam. The Civil War is at the center of our national psyche. Each year more than 100 new Civil War books are published. Tens of thousands of people devote their spare time to its study--collecting memorabilia, re-enacting battles, touring historic sites, discussing causes. Gettysburg Battlefield alone attracts 2 million visitors a year. LONG SHADOWS explores the ways in which the echoes of the Civil War can still be felt in American society: from politics to economics, from civil rights to foreign policy, from individual to collective memory, from South to North to West. It is a film about the nature of History in our national and personal lives--the past as prologue. LONG SHADOWS features Robert Penn Warren, Studs Terkel, Jimmy Carter, Robert Coles, Tom Wicker, Albert Murray, John Hope Franklin, Virginius Dabney, and C. Vann Woodward, as well as weekend soldiers, blues singers, battlefield guides, relic collectors, West Pointers, Vietnam veterans, old movie stars, and Civil Rights activists.—Ross Spears