Drew Gilpin Faust

An illuminating study of the American struggle to comprehend the meaning and practicalities of death in the face of the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War. During the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. This book explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. Historian Faust delineates the...

"In this lively collection of conversations--the third in a series from David Rubenstein--some of our nations' greatest minds explore the inspiring story of America as a grand experiment in democracy, culture, innovation, and ideas. -Jill Lepore on the promise of America -Madeleine Albright on the American immigrant -Ken Burns on war -Henry Louis Gates Jr. on reconstruction -Elaine Weiss on suffrage -John Meacham on civil rights -Walter Isaacson on...

"For more than 40 years, Sally Mann has made experimental, elegiac, and hauntingly beautiful photographs that explore the overarching themes of existence: memory, desire, death, the bonds of family, and nature's magisterial indifference to human endeavor. What unites this broad body of work--portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and other studies--is that it is all "bred of a place," the American South. Mann, who is a native of Lexington, Virginia,...

Based on the best-selling book by Drew Gilpin Faust, this film will explore how the American Civil War created a 'republic of suffering' and will chart the far-reaching social, political, and social changes brought about by the pervasive presence and fear of death during the Civil War.