Product Details

• Actors: Lydia Alvita, Jennifer Antkowiak, Orion Barnes, Dan Bolton, Joshua Bradley
• Directors: David Padrusch
• Writers: David Padrusch, Matt Koed
• Producers: David Padrusch, Matt Koed
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• DVD Release Date: April 24, 2007
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000NA2TTW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,759 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War (History Channel)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

AFTER SHOCK:BEYOND THE CIVIL WAR - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars H.S. History Teacher on Aftershock, September 11, 2007

By 

B. S. Hobson (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War (History Channel) (DVD)

With societies, as with individuals, it is often much easier for us to examine the mistakes of others than it is to take an honest look at our own. In both cases, however, honest examination is essential to making genuine progress. Aftershock succeeds in providing us with details on a topic of which most Gone-With-the-Wind-watching Americans are unaware: the atrocious violence and frequent chaos that followed Lee's surrender.

Anyone who has actually studied slavery and the slave trade as they existed in America (as opposed to simply treating them as unavoidable footnotes in U.S. history) is well-aware that it is difficult to fathom the cost of those institutions in human life, considering the shortened life spans, high morbidity rates, high infant mortality rates, etc., of those affected. On the other hand, we are aware of the literally millions who perished (some through intentional killings) in the Middle Passage and the 620 thousand Americans who died in the Civil War.

With all of the above in mind, we might be tempted to minimize the significance of the bloodshed that occurred during the Reconstruction era and the entire century of strife that followed the war; Aftershock, however, does an outstanding job of illustrating the former. This film tells the stories of a variety of individuals and organizations, including the Arkansas National Guard; ex-Confederate soldiers; state officials; African American troops; displaced Southern civilians; and one of our nation's oldest homegrown terrorist groups, the Ku Klux Klan. It also devotes a few (though far from enough) moments to the often overlooked role of Native Americans in the post-war years. It even touches on the frustration that some government officials felt with Andrew Johnson's calamitous approach to the nation's troubles.

This is one of the few documentaries on the years immediately following the war that I would consider incorporating into a larger class project.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reconstruction reconsidered, December 22, 2007

By 

Gerald R. Hibbs "gerbear" (Edmond, Oklahoma United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War (History Channel) (DVD)

This DVD from the history channel is well done. It highlights some of the outstanding events of reconstruction after the Civil War including the founding of the KKK. It makes the point grahphically that while the North won the Civil War, the South won the period of Reconstruction. It is essential to understand this period of time in order to understand subsequent American History.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History Buff's Side, September 11, 2008

By 

William C. Allen "Civil War History buff" (Columbia, South Carolina) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War (History Channel) (DVD)

Being a History Buff of the Civil War period, naturally Reconstruction also has it's appeal to me. I never learned much about either in school. All I was taught, there was a war, these were the sides, this is who did what, the US wins the end. Then Reconstruction was always giving you the impression of great change. Actually both were horrors in themselves. Which was worse? Can you honestly answer that question?

This was the first real insight I had into Reconstruction. I would seek out other documentaries, I haven't yet tarted reading into this yet, and would get a better idea of it that way. I would recommend anyone interested in this period, or simply curious to watch this. It made you think, that the war wasn't entirely as you were likely lead to believe. This documentary was constructed in the History Channels new way of making their documentaries, which are more like Docu-Drama's which to me make it easier to "understand".