The Lowell Thomas Award 2008

This series brought a nuanced tone and analytical clarity to a very contemporary question: how to gauge the proper time, and the proper way, to disengage from war. Correspondent Jeb Sharp makes good use of historical actuality and new interviews to enliven what could have been an antiseptic topic. As one judge noted, the series is particularly admirable for its smart handling of abstract questions, for example, the tension between stability and justice. Each segment offers a different insight — not just about the end of war, but also about the fact that victory and defeat can sometimes be "oddly mutable," as Sharp puts it.