TV History for the Global village

How do you envisage a survey of world history suitable, potentially, for television audiences in all parts of the globe? And having planned it, how do you execute it in such a way as to be not only culturally acceptable, but also commercially attractive worldwide?

A spirited attempt to achieve such aims has been undertaken by the London-based production company, Transatlantic Films, which has just completed a thirteen-part series entitled History's Turning Points. This takes the viewer from the battle of Salamis in 480 BC, when Athens' 'wooden walls' saved Greek civilisation from Persian domination, through to the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima fifty years ago this month.

Transatlantic Films had already earned their spurs in historical programming with their work on the ten-part series Greek Fire -shown on Britain's Channel 4 in 1990 and 1991 - which looked at the classical roots of modern society and culture using innovative TV technology and computer graphics. The presentational format of History's Turning Points, while using some of these techniques, is rather more traditional, and even on occasion sparse.