Cold War (TV Series)

Cold War (TV Series)

Cold War is a twenty-four episode television documentary series about the Cold War that aired in 1998. It features interviews and footage of the events that shaped the tense relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The series was produced by Pat Mitchell and Jeremy Isaacs, who had earlier in 1973 produced the World War II documentary series The World at War in a similar style. Ted Turner funded the series as a joint production between the Turner Broadcasting System and the BBC, and was first broadcast on CNN in the United States and BBC Two in the United Kingdom. Writers included Hella Pick, Jeremy Isaacs, Lawrence Freedman, Neal Ascherson, Hugh O'Shaughnessy and Germaine Greer. Kenneth Branagh was the narrator, and Carl Davis (who also collaborated with Isaacs with The World at War) composed the theme music. Each episode would feature historical footage and interviews from both significant figures and others who had witnessed particular events.

After the series was broadcast it was released as a set of twelve (NTSC) or eight (PAL) VHS cassettes. The web-site dedicated to the series, which was located at cnn.com/ColdWar, disappeared in 2009, although an archive of the site is still maintained at Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The reason given by a CNN representative was that its 10 year agreement to the maintain an online presence had lapsed.

The series was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on May 8, 2012.