content: Written during the Great Depression when Americans needed escapism, GWTW and the resulting movie it spawned are primarily responsible for distorting many Americans impressions of slavery, as well as trivializing the horror of the Civil War. If you like your history covered with moonlight and magnolias and sugar-coated beyond all reality GWTW is just what you are looking for. After all, its only fiction. Problem is, too many people over the years have come to regard it as almost gospel. In the end, GWTW is little more than a cheap attempt to create an American version of Tolstoy's "War & Peace."