Large Print Reviews - War Books on CD - History, Fiction, & Theory

Large Print Reviews

War Books on CD
History, Fiction, & Theory

War Books on CD - History, Fiction, & Theory
The Full Text of 283 Books
Compiled by Richard Seltzer
B&R Samizdat Express - February 3, 2003
ISBN: 0-931968-20-8
Genre: History, Military Science, & Historical Fiction

Reviewed by Rochelle Caviness - April 2, 2003

Please note: As of 9/16/2008, this CD now contains 779 books.

War - the term conjures up different images for different people. However, one thing can be said for certain is that at one time or another, war has touched everyone. For some, war has touched them personally, for others, their only contact with the subject has been through history books. One way or another, however, everyone's life, past and present, has been influenced by war. It could be said that war is a fact of life - and an integral component of many cultures.

War is an intriguing subject - it has an intense emotional impact - and it has been used as a mainstay of literature for centuries! War Books on CD is a phenomenal collection of books dealing with war in all its myriad forms. This collection of books, which was compiled by Richard Seltzer, contains 283 books in the fields of history, fiction, military theory.

The books in this collection are organized into eight thematic sections:

Theory and Technology
Ancient Times
Medieval
Renaissance and Reformation (16th Century)
17th Century
18th Century
19th Century
20th Century

Within each main section, you will find subsections that deal with particular conflicts that have occurred around the world, such as

Pharsalia (Civil War, by Lucan - A.D. 39 - A.D. 65)
The Crusades (1095-1291)
Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)
King Philip's War (1675-1676)
American Revolution (1775-1783)
19th conflicts on the Russian Frontier
The Boer War (1899-1902)
World War I (1914-1918)
Viet Nam War (1964-1972)

Within each subsection, you will find both historical as well as fictional works related to war in the period or event denoted. Some of the fictional works that I'd like to highlight because I feel them to be 'must read' are:

The Iliad by Homer
The Age of Chivalry: King Arthur and His Knights by Thomas Bullfinch
The Song of Roland
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Richard III by William Shakespeare
The Three Musketeers Saga by Alexander Dumas
The Last of the Mohicans, A Narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

This is just a taste of the wealth of literary works to be found in this collection. The fictional works pale in comparison to the historical works! For students, academicians, and history buffs in general, as well as those looking for a wealth of literary works, this collection is a must have! For the price of an average hardcover book you can acquire an entire 'war' library. Many of the books in this collection are popular classics, such as The Art of War, the oldest military treatise in the world by Sun Tzu, (translated by Lionel Giles) to lesser known, but equally important works such as Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War by the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

War Books on CD - History, Fiction, & Theory also includes a teacher's and student's guide that will help you to navigate through the CD. In addition, this CD ships with ReadPlease, a screen reading program designed to enable visually impaired and blind readers to easily access the books in this collection.

ReadPlease

ReadPlease is a windows-based screen reading program. Their homepage is located at: www.readplease.com/ Two versions of the ReadPlease program come with the CD, a free version and ReadPlease Plus, a commercial shareware version. To use the program, you simply highlight the text you want read to you, and the computer will read it aloud. In the free version you can only highlight 16,000 bytes of text at one time, whereas with the commercial version you can set the program to read an unlimited amount of text at one time.

Both versions of ReadPlease have a low vision color option. However, only the commercial version offers extra large buttons. A comparison chart that illustrates the different features between the two programs can be viewed online at: www.readplease.com/english/products/comparison.php..

Besides being able to read texts in English, you can also download additional languages that will enable the program to read texts in UK English, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian. You will find information on how, and from where, to download these additional language modules in the instructions on the ReadPlease main window once you launch the program.

Instruction on how to use both programs can be found in the CD's 'readme' file. Both programs also come with complete instructions, and both versions of the program can be used to read other files on your computer, beyond those found on this CD.

System Requirements

Windows PC
A web browser such as Explorer or Netscape, or a word processing program such as Word or WordPerfect.

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