WORLD WAR II (Mentorum Multimedia, $29.98)
This comprehensive multimedia encyclopedia of World War II, produced in association with the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., is presented in a two-disk CD-ROM set for Windows and features interactive maps, biographies, statistics, and extensive audio footage. Disk one, “Global Conflict,” is split into five sections that examine the origins of the war in Europe; the German Blitzkrieg from the 1939 invasion of Poland to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941; the fighting in the European Theater that led eventually to Germany’s surrender on V-E Day in May 1945; the expansionist policies of the Empire of Japan and the prelude to war in the Far East; and the conduct of the war in the Pacific from the December 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor to its conclusion in August 1945. The second disk, “Sources and Analysis,” features events and their political impact and examines the war from the perspective of the military engaged in the fighting and the civilians on the various home fronts.
