As part of the series, Commanding Heights Online illuminates the history of the global economy and shows how key economic theories have evolved in the context of historical events. Providing a comprehensive history of the ideas, events, and values that have shaped the present global economy, the Commanding Heights Web site complements and enriches the resources of the PBS broadcast.

Log on anytime, anywhere at http://www.pbs.org/commandingheights/ and watch the entire series online from your home, office, or school. The netcast will be available-in chapters optimized for broadband delivery-for thirty days following each PBS broadcast premiere.  In addition to the broadband, media-rich version of  the site, Commanding Heights Online is available as a text-based site for users with limited bandwidth or visual or hearing disabilities. All video on the Web site is closed captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing users.

Part One: "The Battle of Ideas" on Wednesday, April 3, 2002 at 9pm ET 

Part Two: "The Agony of Reform" on Wednesday, April 10, 2002 at 9pm ET 

Part Three: "The New Rules of the Game" on Wednesday, April 17, 2002  at 9pm ET

Together the Web site and the netcast provide important ideas, tools, and resources that allow 
viewers, teachers, and students to:

• Watch specific chapters of the broadcast or browse through the entire documentary
• Explore the dramatic impact of economic policies on world history
• Compare economic theories with actual outcomes
• Examine similar economic and political events occurring at different points in time and space
• Focus on specific economic and historical issues for additional context and depth
• Meet the people at the center of the great changes around the world

- Watch streaming video of all three programs- subdivided in short chapters-online and on-demand. 
Follow links in the storyline that pop up as the video chapters play, and read about related topics 
for deeper exploration of the content. The broadband netcast is accessible for thirty days 
following each PBS premiere broadcast. 
 
- Take a journey through time and space using the time map, an interactive atlas of economic history, 
and track changes in political boundaries and major shifts in economic policies in more than thirty 
nations from 1910 to the present. Select individual country reports or flashpoints-key events in 
modern, global economic history-such as the Versailles Treaty, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and 
the Solidarity Strike in Poland.
 
- Find out what Vice President Dick Cheney, Mexican President Vicente Fox, Singapore's Senior Minister 
Lee Kuan Yew, and former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev have to say about the global economy. 
Read comprehensive transcripts of their on-camera interviews, and examine biographies 
of the people who played significant roles in the development of the modern global market.
  
- Learn how free-market economies differ from centrally planned governments with topical essays, 
a glossary and other tools to identify the ideas, key institutions, and underlying dynamics central 
to the story of COMMANDING HEIGHTS: THE BATTLE FOR THE WORLD ECONOMY.
 
- Participate in a moderated online forum and discuss contemporary economic issues raised by the 
broadcast and Web site.
 
- Access an online teacher's guide that provides suggestions for applications of the Web site in 
classroom instruction. The guide-developed in consultation with experienced teachers and 
scholars-is available in versions for both high school and postsecondary educators.

WGBH Interactive
WGBH Interactive is a pioneer in the interactive media arts and the longest continuously operating 
interactive media production unit in the public broadcasting system. 

Working with the Foundation's National Production and Children's Production units, WGBH Interactive 
produces award-winning companion Web sites for major PBS series such as NOVA, Masterpiece Theatre, 
American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, ZOOM, and Between the Lions. These sites are 
continually updated and offer unique, media-rich features as well as more traditional text and image 
content. Along with these very popular ongoing series sites, WGBH 

Interactive produces extensive online sites for limited series such as A Science Odyssey, Africans 
in America, Building Big, Culture Shock and Evolution. 

Over four million visitors per month, approximately 40% of PBS.org's total traffic, come to Web sites 
produced by WGBH.

PBS Online
PBS.org, PBS's award-winning site on the World Wide Web, produces high-quality Web programming, as it pioneers the convergence of television and the Internet. PBS.org features more than 135,000 pages of content as well as companion Web sites for more than 450 PBS programs and specials, and is the #1 "dot-org" Web site in the world. (Source: Nielsen NetRatings)

Production and Funding

COMMANDING HEIGHTS: THE BATTLE FOR THE WORLD ECONOMY is an InVision Productions Limited Production in association with Heights Productions and WGBH Boston, with the assistance of Lion 
Television Limited. Funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the John Templeton Foundation. National corporate sponsorship is provided by BP, EDS, and FedEx Corporation. Additional funding for the netcast and Web site is provided by Microsoft Corp. and The Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation, Inc. WGBH executive producer and producer for the netcast and Web site is Howard Cutler. Senior content producer is Siddhartha Mitter.
 
 

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more . . .

 
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