Writing
a guide to content on the Internet is a thankless
task and I am
not sure why anyone would bother. I can only
imagine that book publishers find it a profitable
genre.
When the average life of a website is figured
in days, when content comes and goes or is
moved, a directory of websites is inevitably
obsolete before the last full stop is typed.
The major search engine businesses invest huge
sums of money in the technology to keep up
with it all. What chance does a book have?
The
better sites tend to remain longer. For example,
the Long, Long Trail and Tom Morgan's "Hellfire
Corner" have been around for more than a decade.
It is this more enduring, quality content that
the author of "A guide to military history
on the Internet" sought
to present.
The scope of coverage is enormous, taking in
all wars and military activity from 1066 to
around 1998. There is a decidedly British and
English language slant to the selection, although many
sites authored elsewhere are mentioned. Not
surprisingly, there is a considerable focus
on the two World Wars.
There
is no doubt that the author had searched
many nooks and crannies of the world wide
web and certainly there are dozens, hundreds
perhaps, of websites mentioned that I had
never heard of. Then again, I tend not
to spend much time searching outside WW1.
If I really did need information on the Wars
of the Roses or the English Civil War or
what happened to the Zulus in 1879, five
minutes Googling would have found it. Fifteen
seconds on a site gives me enough to tell
me whether there is content worth believing
and using. I simply cannot imagine I would
have looked the sites up in a printed directory. Perhaps
those new to the Internet would have - but
it must be a very untutored web user who
needs to be shown the way to Google, MSN
and some of the general search engines and
encyclopedias that are listed. I must say
that I found this, plus the tips on
how to start your own website and how to
buy books over the Internet, to deflect from
the stated intention of the work and reduce
its overall value.
Taking WW1 as an area of focus, relevant
websites appear in a number of sections:
researching individuals, war memorials and
rolls of honour, military museums and a 16-page
section on the war itself. None of the sites
I use frequently were missing and to a large
extent I agree with the author's often candid
views on their design or content.
The author selects a personal "Top Ten" in
a closing chapter. The list is led by Wikipedia,
which I find completely unreliable as a source
of information and doubt it would figure
in my top 100. It just goes to show how
personal taste and the purposes for which
an individual uses the Internet can affect views
about the beauty and utility of any given
site.
Summing
up, this is as thorough and up to date a
work as you are likely to find. Considering
the scope of coverage, it does a fine job
of uncovering the key websites. It is very
nicely and professionally produced and even
at an undiscounted cover price of £9.99 is
good value. I just don't see that I would
find much use for it myself.
Simon Fowler is editor of the excellent National
Archives magazine, "Ancestors" and among other
works is author of "Tracing your army ancestors" .
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