The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century

The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century, a co-production of KCET/Los Angeles and the BBC, in association with Britain's London-based Imperial War Museum, premiered on PBS November 10, 1996 to great critical acclaim. The series won two Emmy awards, the Alfred du Pont Journalism Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Producers Guild of American Vision Award, the International Documentary Association: Best Limited Series Award, and a Director's Guild Nomination. It was the first TV production ever to go beyond the military and political history of World War I to reveal its ongoing, social, cultural and personal impact.

The series featured a large cast of noted actors, including Leslie Caron, Ralph Fiennes, Louis Gossett Jr., Jeremy Irons, Yaphet Kotto, Martin Landau, Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Natasha Richardson, Martin Sheen, Jean Stapleton, Michael York, with Salome Jens as narrator. A companion book, The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century, was written by Blaine Baggett and Jay Winter, published by Penguin Studio Books.

The television series was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Public Broadcasting Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.