That narrative offers those who want or need it a guide to literally thousands of bits of primary sources. The difference between the print and digital version is not simply atoms versus bits, but that the sheer volume of primary source material reverses the ratio of documents to narrative. The CD-ROM is full of raw material that allows students, if so inclined, to deconstruct its own narrative. Many CD-ROM versions of college texts are constructed with little thought of what it means to use a different medium, let alone how to negotiate the relationship between historical narrative and primary sources. WBA, the CD-ROM, makes its narrative central to its organization, yet at the same time, develops the possibility for students to create their own narratives by engaging an incredible variety of primary sources.
Excursions are from the narrative to a primary source or sources.
Many pages of the narrative, but not all, have excursions. Together, these excursions in audio, text and moving and still images give the student a sense of central importance of the railroad to the economy, politics, culture and creative imagination of late nineteenth century America. The narrative, from which the excursion began, could not in the same way communicate to students the railroad's power to inspire, anger and touch the lives of so many people. By examining sources in such close proximity and relationship to the narrative, students can respond to the ASHP text more critically by expanding, revising, questioning or even rejecting its interpretation. The railroad is an important point of departure for the study of late nineteenth century history.