A PBS series built from Daniel Yergin's book traces the twentieth century's central economic argument: state planning versus free markets. It opens with the ideological duel between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek, then follows their ideas through the postwar Bretton Woods system, Margaret Thatcher's privatizations, and Ronald Reagan's tax cuts, using archival footage and interviews with economists, former finance ministers, and central bankers who lived through the decisions. Later episodes track the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the collapse of the Soviet economy, and the opening of markets in China and Latin America, showing how deregulation and capital flows reshaped countries that once ran closed economies. The series treats globalization as an unfinished argument rather than a settled verdict, giving time to critics who point to instability and inequality alongside officials who credit market reforms with lifting millions out of poverty. Three episodes carry the story from the Great Depression to the aftermath of September 11, when a newly interconnected world discovers how exposed that interconnection has made it.