As part of its year-long “Local and Legendary: Maine in the Civil War” project, this winter the Scarborough Public Library will host screenings of some of the most well-known and beloved movies depicting the Civil War, including “Gone With the Wind,” which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1940.

To kick off the film series the library is holding a presentation by Bowdoin College professor Patrick Rael on Sunday, Jan. 26, at 2 p.m. Rael’s talk, which is free and open to the public, will focus on how the Civil War has been represented in film and discuss the relationship between fact and intent.

Then, on three Sundays in February, the library will screen several Civil War films in anticipation of its One Book, One Community event on March 7 and 8. The book chosen is “Billy Boy: The Sunday Soldier of the 17th Maine,” by Jean Flahive.

The book, which was inspired by the life of Billy Laird, a Civil War soldier from Berwick, was painstakingly researched and provides a wealth of information about the roles that Mainers played in the Civil War.

Young adults wishing to participate in the One Book, One Community event are encouraged to read “Picture the Dead,” by Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown. The book focuses on 16-year-old Jennie Lovell, whose twin brother is killed in the Civil War.

The library now has copies of both books, which are available for check out.

Rael is a specialist in African-American history and earned his Ph.D. in American history from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of numerous essays and books, including many on the black experience in the pre-Civil War north.

Rael has also earned numerous fellowships from, among others, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution and the Gilder Lerhman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University.

This summer his latest book, “Eighty-Eight Years: The Long Death of Slavery in the United States, 1777–1865 (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900)” will be coming out from the University of Georgia Press.

In general, Rael said films about the Civil War “vary greatly in their accuracy. Some films don’t pretend to too much accuracy but end up getting a few important things right, like “Django Unchained,” while others tout their historical credentials and get a few important things wrong like Spielberg’s “Lincoln.”

He said what those watching any film about the past should keep in mind is that many of those movies are more about the present moment and what’s going on in politics and society today.

“In this, Civil War films are much like the academic history of the Civil War,” Rael said.

While Rael finds much to admire in many movies about the Civil War, he said one thing that is clearly lacking is an accurate view of African Americans and their story.

He said, “Glory,” which was made in 1989 and which received three Oscars, has helped to “break down many barriers to pop culture’s appreciation of the war and the role of African Americans in the war,” but Rael also said the movie “has failings that other films have not rectified.”

He added, “Most Civil War films actually shy away from considering the full significance of race and slavery to the war. It is amazing to me that Steven Spielberg could make two films about slavery that somehow don’t actually talk much about slavery – “Amistad” is the story not of slavery in the American South but of slave rebels from Africa and Cuba, while “Lincoln” is about politicians in the halls of power rather than the enslaved African Americans.”

Even so, Rael said there are “many great films on the period.” One of his favorite films set in the Civil War era is “Gangs of New York.”

He said, “It is not set in the South at all, and there are no traditional battle scenes. But it is very much about the Civil War and the domestic politics of the northern home front. It makes important errors, but (also) captures the feel of antebellum New York City in a way that no other film does, and it highlights how incredibly divisive the war was to the societies that waged it.”

If Rael were to make a movie about the Civil War his topic would be the Reconstruction era.

“I think we need a film about Reconstruction, or the troubled period after the war,” he said. “There is no shortage of battle-oriented Civil War films. What we have lost is the story of the aftermath. This sad story does not make for the triumphalist narratives we like in our feature films, but it is a crucial part of the American story.”

In terms of his presentation at the library, Rael said he wants people to think about a variety of issues as they watch the Civil War films being screened.

People should keep in mind, “what sorts of themes reappear in film after film and how has the Civil War film tradition changed over time?” he said. “In short, I am interested in helping us become thoughtful and critical consumers of our own popular history.”

Rael added, “Most adult Americans learn more about their past from feature films than any other medium. We owe it to ourselves to approach these important depictions of our past with intelligence and moral courage.”