Scrapbook of the Revolution: Hypertext and the representation of history (China)

This study explores the qualities of hypertext as a vehicle for historical representation, particularly when compared to traditional narrative representations of history in books and movies. The study reviews the issues that historians have raised about the traditional narrative representation of history, then matches those concerns with corresponding claims that hypertext theorists make about hypertext as an expressive form, creating a framework within which a book (Mao: A Life by Philip Short), a documentary film (It's Right to Rebel!, produced by Ambrica Productions) and a Web site (Scrapbook of the Revolution, produced by Susan Jacobson, the author of this study) about the Chinese Cultural Revolution were analyzed and compared. The goal of the comparison and analysis was to determine what unique qualities, if any, hypertext brought to bear upon the representation of historical material.; The results of the study showed that the hypertextual Web site did exhibit qualities that were related to concerns that historians have raised about the traditional narrative representation of history and claims about hypertext as an expressive form as predicted by hypertext theorists, although some of the consequences of these qualities were less obvious than theory would suggest. The study also found that the book and the film could be found to have some limited hypertextual qualities when analyzed in terms of the formal properties of hypertext.