Getting beyond romanticism about the Civil War

(Slate) ... For Americans who do not compare their big, homegrown war enough with those on other continents, this can be instructive. After showing Ken Burns' film series on the Civil War to a class of German undergraduates, I was once confronted by a student who wanted to know "why are there so many moon rises and sun sets in this film, and why do you Americans always think that everything that happens to you is the biggest thing in history? Do Americans understand the scale of bloodshed and social destruction of the Thirty Years' War?" To which I could only reply, "No, most have never heard of it." Continued

Photo: Les Grandes Misères de la guerre by Jacques Callot