Dr David Silkenat runs through his course ‘The American Civil War and Reconstruction’, which focuses on the period from the Mexican War to the Compromise of 1877, and introduces some of the key themes and interpretative controversies of the period that will be investigated.

It is part of the online MSc History programme at the University of Edinburgh. Find out more at http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/online-history.

Some of the images contained within this video are available in the public domain and were sourced from Wikipedia.