I've been meaning to write about Commanding Heights for a while now, but I just never get to do it, as the site is too big for me to digest. It's the complete online version of a TV documentary series by PBS that runs for six hours! Who's got that kind of time online? Uses QuickTime, DSL or faster recommended.
The fun part is that the table of contents works, so I find myself jumping back and forth in the six hours, watching a chapter here, a scene there. Hypertext TV.
But in addition, there is hyperlinks appearing next to the film, which works poorly, because you have to watch two places at the same time. The links are to several long text articles and book excerpts, which are interesting, but the hours needed just keep adding up...
Then there is an immense interactive atlas with all kinds of statistics and history.
Commanding heights is a great archive for a serious student, but it doesnt work as fluidly as Becoming Human.
Oh, Commanding Heights is all about how two competing economic theories influenced governments in the Twentieth Century. It's more interesting than you'd think, really!
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