Roman conquest of Italy timeline video.

Mouthwash

Escaped Lunatic
Joined
Sep 26, 2011
Messages
9,368
Location
Hiding
This is how all history should be taught (watch in fullscreen):


Link to video.

Also, does anyone know what the music is? It sounds familiar.
 
A map and dates does not history make.
 
Seems like a pretty lousy way to learn it. The format of scrolling text combined with a dynamic map forced me to focus in two places at once, and I wasn't sure where in the text I was supposed to be reading to match the map until the 2nd Punic War, and I already knew the chronology pretty well.

Then, this seems to reduce the time period to getting conquered by Rome, the map is painted red, end of story. It says absolutely nothing about how any of that territory was governed, or why these wars occurred, which is the actually interesting part.
 
Seems like a pretty lousy way to learn it. The format of scrolling text combined with a dynamic map forced me to focus in two places at once, and I wasn't sure where in the text I was supposed to be reading to match the map until the 2nd Punic War, and I already knew the chronology pretty well.

Then, this seems to reduce the time period to getting conquered by Rome, the map is painted red, end of story. It says absolutely nothing about how any of that territory was governed, or why these wars occurred, which is the actually interesting part.

Yeah, but it could be improved.
 
Yeah, but it could be improved.

You can't distill entire books into a map and a few lines of text.

History isn't really about dates and maps. That's chronology. History is about interpretation, explanation, and argument. It's about telling you why you should care about the Roman republic and how it worked, not that it existed and did things.
 
You can't distill entire books into a map and a few lines of text.

History isn't really about dates and maps. That's chronology. History is about interpretation, explanation, and argument. It's about telling you why you should care about the Roman republic and how it worked, not that it existed and did things.

Interactive video maybe?
 
Why make it a video? Much easier to have a slideshow type dealy. You can advance the map between different key events, and then give a proper explanation of said events. Then you can at least have a decent introductory view.
 
Why make it a video? Much easier to have a slideshow type dealy. You can advance the map between different key events, and then give a proper explanation of said events. Then you can at least have a decent introductory view.

Yeah, that would be good. As long as it kept that music. :)
 
As a supplement to a specific lesson about Roman conquest, it's not terrible. Although 12 minutes on this video is not a productive use of time. Maybe say "hey, look at this on your free time." That way, worst that happens is they don't look at it.

But there's more to history than conquest and more to conquest than maps with red coloring. So, it's a cool little thing to look at, but isn't worth much more than that.
 
Single sentences of "Rome conquered funny sounding town," aren't very informative.
 
It's about the chronology, and the extent of specificity.

I have never seen such timeline video regarding Roman territorial expansion before.

Usually it is easy to find maps of Rome in, for example 270 BC, 200 BC, 100 BC, etc.

But here you have a detailed, year by year progress shown.
 
It's about the chronology, and the extent of specificity.

I have never seen such timeline video regarding Roman territorial expansion before.

Usually it is easy to find maps of Rome in, for example 270 BC, 200 BC, 100 BC, etc.

But here you have a detailed, year by year progress shown.
That is indeed cool, but not really history. It reminds me of the video that played at the end of Civ 3, showing empires rising and falling with the dates of the capture, destruction and construction of cities, as well as the births of Great People and the construction of Wonders.
 
Does it even really make sense to depict Rome as a big red blob spilling outwards? My understanding of Roman expansion was that it was a much more complex affair, involving a whole range of vassals, allies and tributaries as well as outright subjugation, but this just folds it all into a one-dimensional question of "in or out".
 
Does it even really make sense to depict Rome as a big red blob spilling outwards? My understanding of Roman expansion was that it was a much more complex affair, involving a whole range of vassals, allies and tributaries as well as outright subjugation, but this just folds it all into a one-dimensional question of "in or out".

Yeah, but this is much more fun!
 
at least they use red for Rome like in civilization :)

Haven't played the first two have you? :p

As far as OP, I think it is a good support material. Yes, it could be run in class after the all the topics were covered (as a summary), but not as main study material.
 
Top Bottom