The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century

The PBS documentary TV series, The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century, was first broadcast starting Sunday night, Nov. 10, 1996, in four installments of two hours each night, ending Wednesday night, Nov. 13, 1996. This series emphasized the broad impact of the war on the century that followed, the "short century" that Eric Hobsbawm has argued that began in 1914 and ended in 1989. According to PBS, the series emphasized transformation: "The geopolitical and economic reordering, the alienation of the intelligentsia, the social expectations and disappointments, the tutoring of governmental and military leaders in massive mobilisation and increased powers of the state for future crises, the notion of a world congress -- these are but some of the legacies of the Great War that transformed now we have lived through our age of the twentieth century."
  1. Episode 1: Explosion
  2. Episode 2: Stalemate
  3. Episode 3: Total War
  4. Episode 4: Slaughter
  5. Episode 5: Mutiny
  6. Episode 6: Collapse
  7. Episode 7: Hatred and Hunger
  8. Episode 8: War Without End

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revised 3/17/99 by Schoenherr | Film Notes | History Department