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AMERICAN PRESIDENTS: THE MOST POWERFUL MAN ON EARTH (Mentorom Multimedia, $29.98)

Presented by Walter Cronkite, in collaboration with the National Archives and Records Administration and its presidential libraries, this two-volume CD-ROM set for Windows–“Shaping Modern America” and “The Cold War”–traces the history of modern America through the terms of office of 11 presidents, from Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) to George Bush (1924- ). With the aid of newsreel and video footage, photographs, letters,interviews with historians, and the words of the presidents themselves, the significant domestic and international events of the period are well documented.”Shaping Modern America” covers such dramatic occurrences as the Wall Street Crash (1929), Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” speech (1932), Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), McCarthyism (early 1950s), the assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963), the first moon walk (1969), and the space shuttle Challenger explosion (1986). “The Cold War” focuses on the causes of the struggle that developed after World War II between non-communist countries allied with the United States and communist nations led by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Topics include the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), the Marshall Plan (1947), the building of the Berlin Wall (1961), the Cuban missile crisis (1962), the Strategic ArmsLimitation treaties (1972 and 1974), and the breakup of the U.S.S.R. (1991). An internet “hotlink” allows much of the information to connect with related World Wide Web sites, and a free thirty-minute reference video is included with this set.

More Reviews from the June 1997 issue of American History:
LIGHTHOUSES OF NORTH AMERICA REVOLUTIONARY WAR: BIRTH OF A NATION BELLA VISTA: AN UNSEEN VIEW OF WWII