Multieducator Incorporate’s two‐disk CD‐ROM set, Civil War: America’s epic struggle, is an interesting example of history in a multimedia format. It uses hypertext, animation, sound, and pictures to give an adequate overview of the American Civil War.
Its level of information is not of much greater depth than a book by Bruce Catton or Shelby Foote. The question remains, however, how many junior high or high school students would make it through a book by Foote or Catton? Using computer technology, however, to tell the same story will help visually oriented learners or students who are just simply drawn to computers to take a look at Civil War history. Young students will play around with Encarta on the computer; The World Book Encyclopedia will seldom have the same attraction.
It is simple enough to load on either the Macintosh or Windows platform. The software is on the disc. All one has to do is click on the icon or use the run command from the file menu. There is no downloading involved, and there are no inconvenient programs left on the hard drive.
This is the perfect format for libraries with many CD‐ROMs but only a few computers. The discs could be kept at the desk and checked out for use on any available computer station. CD‐ROM collection management is always simpler if the library does not have to dedicate a station to a single use.
The program is easily navigated, and any user with a basic knowledge of point‐and‐click mouse work should have no problem. A few buttons, like the “battle narration” didn’t seem to be apparent as a button, but most people should figure it out. The simplicity of the system is reflected in its 14‐page instruction booklet. The booklet is brief; but it does not leave any important questions unanswered.
A sound card is essential to get the full benefit of this title. It is very weak without the narration. An SVGA monitor for Windows or a 13‐inch monitor for Mac are also necessary. The recommended computers are LCIII for Macintosh and a 486 for Windows. The system needs eight megabytes of RAM and a double‐speed CD‐ROM drive.
There are some problems. The bibliography for further reading is disappointingly weak. After catching a student’s interest, it would be nice to have a better developed list of books to seize the teachable moment. Civil War uses period maps to illustrate its points. In a couple of cases, most notably the battle of Atlanta section, the map is impossible to read.
It would have been nice to have a better representation of period music, other than a few songs plunked out on a period piano. Some of the animation attempts look like a Monty Python cartoon, but most of the time the animation succeeds. The disembodied head of Abraham Lincoln floating over a picture of Civil War sailors during the story of the assassination is either spooky or funny depending on how you look at it.
The strength of the program is that it makes full use of hypertext technology to allow the user to look at Civil War events, find period pictures and illustrations of the events, and gather the biographical data of the people involved in those events. The second disc provides sections on the naval war, medicine, and railroads of the Civil War, which are areas most books neglect. There is also an excellent section of raw statistics about the Civil War.
There are several extras that make this product worthwhile, including the full text of important primary documents of the Civil War. For example, users can read the text of the Confederate Constitution or the surrender negotiations of Forts Henry and Donaldson Colleges and universities will consider this a marginal purchase since so much of the information is basic. Undergraduates may appreciate using the primary documents and period photographs for projects. This is a highly recommended purchase, however, for middle school through high school media centers. Civil War: America’s epic struggle could be a powerful tool to get the Nintendo generation’s interest sparked in this important era of American history.
