Empires and Interconnections Book Reviews

Empires and Interconnections by Spencer Striker Book Summary

Introducing Empires & Interconnections, the newest edition in the award-winning History Adventures digital book series, whose accolades include the 2019 Horizon Interactive Gold Medal Award for Best Education App.

This fully interactive, animated digital learning product represents a fresh approach to history education, designed for today’s digital generation. History Adventures: Empires & Interconnections (1450-1750) combines the latest in mobile entertainment with the power of narrative design—bringing the pages of history to life.

An Age of Exploration, Gunpowder, and International Trade

During this period of colossal change, from 1450-1750, the world got smaller. The age of exploration, gunpowder, and international trade took hold, like never before. Epic empires expanded, and followed trade routes—as European nations battled to control as much of the world’s wealth as possible. The dark side of this explosion of wealth and consolidated power and influence, meant enslavement and ruin for some, as Europeans unknowingly brought diseases that killed millions and meanwhile initiated the gruesome, inhumane Atlantic Slave Trade. Some nations remained autonomous and isolated, such as the Tokugawa of Japan—but this took huge effort to throw off this tide of increasing global interconnectedness.

Empires & Interconnections

For Empires & Interconnections, we have developed 6 new characters—each of whom confronts a core question: how to deal with this tidal sweep of rising empires, will they integrate into this newly connected world, or will they find a way to resist?

A World of Characters

We begin our journey in 1453, as Ioannina, a woman of Byzantine and Turkish ancestry, experiences the Ottoman Siege of Constantinople, led by Sultan Mehmed II. The battle hangs by a thread, but ultimately the ancient capital falls, heralding the final death knell of the Roman Empire, and the rise of the Islamic empires of the Middle East, whose control of this critical crossroads will push the emerging mercantile empires of Western Europe to search for a Western route to Asia. Our next character, Luis Felipe Gutierrez, is a Spanish adventurer, who dreams of achieving wealth and glory in the New World--while spreading the word of God--as Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro had done before him. In the disease-stricken, war-torn mountains and jungles of Peru, he finds instead madness, confusion, and death.

In Tokugawa Japan, a young woman, Ishi, is a key advisor to the powerful warlord, Tokugawa, who strives to achieve the first Shogunate. She will advise Tokugawa on how to deal with these strange, fanatical European missionaries: should she grant clemency, or should she deal with them harshly, and with violence, to stamp out their looming threat. In 1619, we introduce William, a man forcibly brought to the new settlement of Jamestown in Virginia, by Portuguese Slave traders. Captured by English pirates in the Caribbean, William was sold along with 16 other Africans to the struggling Jamestown colony--and there he would be the first to confront an international slave trade that would last for centuries, and grip the lives of millions.

A century later we find one man, Jonas, was still struggling to find his place in the Atlantic World. As trading companies and governments tightened their grip, a few men like Jonas rebelled and turned pirate. Based in the notorious pirate haven of Nassau, in the Caribbean, Jonas plundered merchant ships. The question was for how long he could escape the hangman’s noose? On the other side of the world, in the Indian subcontinent, a Bengali tax collector must decide whether to remain loyal to the Mughal Emperor or side with the rapidly expanding British East India Company. As the company seized control of Bengal on the battlefield, Arun had to decide where his loyalties lay?

What Would I Have Done?
This is the Best Question About the Past You Can Ever Ask..

History Adventures, World of Characters is a fully animated, interactive digital learning product designed for performance across all platforms (phones, tablets, and the web)--as a way to engage students, and to ignite an ember of curiosity for learning about the past. Combined with the mobile entertainment design techniques we’re employing, a core product concept is the power of story. Our idea is to dust off the pages of history, and bring them to life, by focusing on compelling narratives… of “real” people, who lived through complex flashpoints of the human past, in different times and places around the globe, all of whom face perplexing, difficult choices whose fateful consequences they cannot possibly foretell. By framing the study of the past through the lens of fascinating characters and dramatic moments, we hope to inspire an emotional resonance, which will imprint in the mind of our readers, forming long-term memories and an emotional/visual impression of history that they will not soon forget!

Innovative product features include:
Immersive 360 Panorama Environments 
Animated, Interactive Infographics 
Enhanced Original Historical Documents 
Choose Your Own Adventure Experience 
Animated Illustrations & Dynamic Text 
AP World History Curriculum 
Media-Rich Interactive Assessments 

Optimized for cross-platform performance, running flawlessly on phones, tablets, and the web.

What the Press are Saying:

"Screenwriters have been adapting historical stories for years, but Spencer Striker, PhD is using a new medium to bring history to life—a fully animated, interactive, narrative-driven digital book series."
- Script Magazine, May 7, 2020

"Spencer Striker's History Adventures couldn’t have come at a better time. As parents all over the US are scrambling to home school their children, the digital media professor and producer has delivered us the history of the world, in an enticing and entertaining format."
- Filmdaily, March 24, 2020

For more History Adventures Press:
http://www.historyadventures.co/press/

Connect on Social Media:
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https://www.facebook.com/HistoryAdventures
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https://twitter.com/HistoryAdvs

History Adventures, World of Characters - a next gen digital book series
Created by Spencer Striker, PhD 
Digital Media Design Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar 
Download the award-winning History Adventures on Apple Books today!
Tags
#history #mobile #education #innovation #apworldhistory #worldhistory #peopleshistory #technology #userexperiencedesign #animation #exploration #digitallearning #revolution #othersideofhistory #narrativedesign #deeptime #interactiondesign #chooseyourownadventure #tokugawa #east india company #samurai #conquistador #jamestown #1619 #republicofpirates #constantinople #1453 #jollyroger #silence #aguirrewrathofgod #bayofbengal #ottomanempire #empires #interconnections #worldofcharacters #1491 #1493 #atlanticslavetrade #shogun

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