Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd books feature prominently in my father's journals from 1939 through 1944. Sinclair's protagonist, the illegitimate son of a wealthy man and a courtesan (named "Beauty" and a happy pleasant woman in spite of what might have been considered her shocking morals), grew up in Europe and met many of the movers and shakers of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. I read the first book, World's End and took much from it (on my summer reading list is Dragon's Teeth, which won a Pulitzer, and is about the rise of the Nazis in Germany.
When I saw the first couple of episodes of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" I saw that what Lucas was doing was much the same type of thing. Presenting history and events to educate kids, but also to entertain them (adults too, of course). On this Memorial Day, I wanted to note the fine work he did with WWI.
Of course, wikipedia is a good place to go to start looking for information about the show. The first episode was the younger version (9-10 years old) in Egypt, and he met up with T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and he later met up with Lawrence again during the Great War. Indy had run away from home and joined the Belgian army during the War and later in the series, he met up with Lawrence again at Versailles, during the negotiations where the British and French divided up the Middle East, and as one might expect from some of the politics in the first of the Star Wars movies (the fourth one made), the episode is incredibly cynical about businesses and governments manipulating the world to their own benefit, rather than for the benefit of their people.
In fact, the Indiana Jones that emerges from the YIJC is a very liberal individual, respectful of women (and expects them to be every bit as intelligent as he is; one of the ealry episodes is about the Suffragettes in England), respectful of other people (learning their languages, rather than expecting them to know English, for example), in favour of indigenous rights (learns some of this respect for local peoples from Bronislav Malinowski, whom he meets in the Trobriand Islands but also is in Ireland at the start of the Irish rebellion), and honourable (there are enemies who are treated with great respect, even in the midst of WWI).
The scenes of trench warfare are impressive, and while one might not be able to show "All Quiet on the Western Front" to a modern school-age audience, a showing of an hour of the August 1917 episode "The Trenches of Hell" gives us a rather impressive look at trench warfare. They show as the troops go "over the top" and as a man chokes on mustard gas; they show the confusion of the battle, and the horror as flame-throwing Germans approach through the mists and gasses. It is not a film for young children, and not in any way a feel good heroic Indiana Jones kind of thing. Remember as we celebrate "Decoration Day" and you see people wearing poppies or putting wreathes of plastic poppies on graves exactly what the poppies are to commemorate.
If you or some of your younger relatives don't know anything about WWI, this series is a pretty good way to find out about it.