The war, a seven-part documentary series, directed, and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novik, explores the history and horror of the second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and woman who become caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history.

Six years in the making, this epic 15-hour film focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns ---Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny farm in town of Luverne, Minnesota. These four community stand in for and could represent in any town in the United States. They went through the war for devastating years. Individuals from each community, take the viewer through their own personal, and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives, and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to say for generations to come.