WRITING ABOUT HIS HEROES COMES NATURALLY TO PULITZER PRIZE WINNER A. SCOTT BERG AND NOW HIS REMARKABLE STORY TELLING AND RESEARCH FORMS THE CORNERSTONE OF SCREEN VERSIONS OF THOSE TALES...NATURALLY.... (Music) I actively got involved in writing his biography around 2000, so I spent 13 years actually working almost full time on that book, on the Wilson book.

His first few years in office, he gets in in 1913 the war breaks out in 1914, so the next three years he does everything he can to keep this country out of the war, and he ran on that slogan.

In 1916 he kept us out of war.

That was one of the reasons he got re-elected.

People in America are say, oh maybe this is an European war, but it is now impacting America.

And now Wilson is introducing a brand new element into American foreign policy.

And that element is a moral one.

It's a moral obligation.

And Wilson, when he gives his great speech, that the world must be made safe for democracy, is in essence saying, can we, the United States, this now rich, powerful country with all sorts of natural resources, can we just sit on the sidelines and do nothing?

Pretend we are not seeing what Germany is doing and what their ultimate intentions are.

And does it not behoove us somehow to get involved in this war.

And that led to the concept, and it was a mission for Woodrow Wilson, that we have this gift of Democracy.

Should this not be something that we should spread?

And with missionary zeal, that is why he led us into the war.

(Film clip) The United states goes from being the country on the other side of the ocean, to being the preeminent world power.

I think the Great War, this six-hour documentary; I certainly hopes it opens up discussion everywhere.

It's hard for me to imagine that it won't, just because it covers so many different aspects of life in America and life around the world, and life as we know it today.

So it's just not a history lesson, it really explains who we are right now.

There are 10 important themes that run through out this show, all of which have their roots in the Great War.

So I think it's going to be inevitable, and it's coming out on the hundredth anniversary is helpful.

It's a nice thing to say where were we a century ago.

I've really been working on Max Perkins since 1968 when I was an undergraduate, when I was a sophomore in college was when I first stumbled across Max Perkins, stumbled across all his papers.

And I was not just interested in what he did with his life, but the way he lived his life, and he really captivated me as a human being.

And I remember I once was discussing Perkins with my first editor on the Max Perkins book and he said you know what makes Perkins such a great editor, there's a lot of great editors, is who he was as a man, he was such a sterling character.

And I think that's true and I always felt I was going to take him with me one way or another.

I did not know the extent I would be revisiting him all the time.

And here he is now 38 years after the book was published in 1978, there's a film, and that means his image will be projected forever.

I mean a version of Max Perkins, which I think is pretty close to the facts will always be out there and I hope my book is always out there with it.

(Film) "Of that he was sure."

And so now to see, well, a feature film made of Max Perkins, to see Woodrow Wilson certainly as one of the tent poles in the Great War for the American Experience, and to see actually great interest that's now being shown in developing that as a feature or television program of some sort, it's very exciting for me because I think these are people the world should know about, certainly these are people Americans should know about.

These people really affected our culture, they've really shaped who we are today, and I think it helps us all to know who they were and where they came from and how they influenced our lives.