The Twentieth Century World

This CD-ROM is part of the AVP PictureBase Encyclopedia - a collection of CDs which is intended to cover topics on the National Curriculum in much greater depth than would be possible by single CDs. This one deals with twentieth century events in Russia, China, Japan, Germany, Spain, Ireland, and the United States. [The UK is covered extensively elsewhere in the collection.] The concentration is on political and military history, with the first and second world wars understandably dominant.

It's a full multi-media presentation which is easy to install and use. The screen is split into four panels. The largest contains a picture; the others contain an extended explanation in textual form, a notepad where you can add your own comments, and a control panel. There's a sound commentary which reads out the text, and you can choose automatic picture selection mode and enjoy a slide show with commentary which takes you through the materials.


There is also a search facility, and you can print out the picture, plus its text and your own notes. There are a limited number of video clips, and you can run the program directly off the CD, although this limits some of its functions. The approach to the subject is reasonably objective, and the anonymous authors don't shy away from difficult issues such as the Nazi death camps, the British domination of Ireland, or the humiliation of the French in Indo-China.

The pictures are taken from photographs, magazines, and newspapers, and they are fairly good quality, except some of the smaller coloured selections taken from older sources. They are also original in their choices. Most of the pictures, apart from portraits of people like Trotsky and Lenin, I had not seen before.

The target audience is Study Unit 4 of the History national Curriculum - at least that's what it says on the box - but this is a resource which could be useful for a much wider audience. As a backup for social history at any level I think it would be very useful - and the ability to print off pictures, plus text, plus your own additional notes should make it an excellent aid to classroom teaching.