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Library Journal Reviews Multimedia by Cheryl LaGuardia & Ed
Tallent
Fateful Lightning: A Narrative History of the Civil
War
This
is the new edition (the second edition was covered in CD-ROM Reviews, LJ
10/15/97) of what is still the best integrated Civil War disc we've found.
It pulls together original text, images, video (of reenactments), and
music (original recordings of period music as well as lyrics and textual
commentary). Supplemental information includes a (welcome!) search/find
feature, charts (of army organization, war deaths from the American
Revolution to Vietnam, and Civil War weapon ranges), a program tour, and
the text of the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
The battle maps and step-by-step progressions through campaigns illustrate
just how the war was fought. A rich context is created by the breadth and
depth of interlinked biographical, social, political, and demographic
material. Bottom Line: Much more than just the sum of its parts, this
edition gets an enthusiastic recommendation for all library collections
and for Civil War enthusiasts. --Harvard University Libraries.
Quest for Empire: A History of the Napoleonic Wars
Another historical tour de force from Troubadour. Like its "Fateful
Lightning: A Narrative History of the Civil War", there is excellent
content and presentation on this disc. The "title page" lists the four
major sections of the system: Timeline, Battle Chronology, Political Map,
and Theater Map, along with seven section titles that follow the course of
the wars. The content, which includes printed text, illustrations, maps of
campaigns and individual battles, pictures of landscapes and portraits,
music, video, charts, documents (Rights of Man, Tennis Court Oath, etc.),
lyrics to "La Marseillaise," a Bibliography, and more, has mostly been
produced by disc creator David Inglehart. There is also good narration.
The one cavil is that the search feature, Find Text, is hidden under an
"Addenda" button on the tool bar. It deserves a button of its own. Bottom
Line: An immersion learning experience in the Napoleonic Wars: recommended
for public library and academic circulating collections. --Harvard
University Libraries.
return to
"Quest for Empire" title page
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