This four part documenatry about Lincoln and his military and political objectives to keep the Union together and ultimately emancipate the slaves and pass the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution is immensely entertaining and enlightening. It is also well crafted, using various photogrpahic techniques combined with narratives provided by historians with varied backgrounds. Lincoln had to weave his way through a complex set of problems, dealing with military setbacks, political pressures from abolitionists, Southern sympathizers, and citizens cool to the idea of emancipating the slaves at the expense of prolonging the Civil War. Lincoln kept an open mind, listened to intellectuals like Frederick Douglas, and finally found a general who could win battles, and provide the political capital to achieve emancipation, renunite the country, start on a path to reconstruction, and pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The series also covers two other facets of the aftermath of the Civil War: the backlash against reconstruction, and rebuilding the image of the Southern insurrectionists and basically trying to rewrite the history of that period, including the building of monuments all over the South to glorify the leaders of the insurrection. This is a series that all American's should watch to get a better understanding of how the history of that era still affects us today.
