[1] Hosted by Patrick Watson, the series profiled the birth and evolution of democracy, including both the challenges and the opportunities that lay ahead for it in the future.
[2] The series was also paired with a companion book, co-written by Watson and Benjamin Barber, and published by Lester & Orpen Dennys.
[4] The series premiered January 8, 1989, airing simultaneously in English on CBC Television and in French on Télévision de Radio-Canada.
[7] The series did face some minor criticism for the fact that due to the rapidly-changing geopolitical climate of the late 1980s, it had been completed too early to cover some noteworthy events at all, including the Tiananmen Square protests and the Soviet Bloc Revolutions of 1989.
[6] Following the original ten-episode 1989 series, Watson created a sequel special in 1990, covering the events in China and Eastern Europe.