~ INTRODUCTION ~

---

S

Welcome to OBS's Internet Projection of Restoration, a new Miramax film. The film depicts an ordinary man, Robert Merivel, who receives an irresistible offer, but discovers that in a world of power and seduction, temptation has its price.

Here, modern moviegoers will find excerpts from this provocative Restoration adventure linked to background material culled from the Net. We discover that the Restoration of the English Monarchy in the mid-1600s was a time period in many ways parallel to our own riotous dawning of the Information Age; the mid-17th century bridged two cultures and marked the beginning of Modern Times.

We focus on four thematic threads: Politics, Religion, Marriage, and Medicine. Although distinct, at times these four themes overlap. Others not yet addressed here, such as Art and Music, beg to be explored and could serve well as the basis for class projects.

The two-column format (best viewed with Netscape), enables you to peruse either the content (in the left column) or the context (in the right column), or both at the same time.

Our search for 17th-century cultural resources relies wholly on 20th-century technology, and ranges from sending keyword queries to cyber search engines, to emailing queries to scholars. We are both excited and grateful for the ideas, leads, support, and URLs offered by the online educational community, the "content backbone" of Internet. Their response makes this a truly "contributive" site, an evolving resource for all to freely use and enjoy, an approach which itself bridges the initial Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) of the original noncommercial Internet, and the new "superhighway" mode which lures so many businesses to the Net today.

Many thanks to forward-looking Miramax Films for enabling OBS to pioneer this form of content-rich "marketing" of their film. We will continue to add new links as we find them and as they are sent in by visitors.

We hope you will find this presentation helpful and entertaining as both a preview and a prologue for Restoration. We encourage you to contribute by letting us know of any relevant links you have discovered (or created!) that are not included on this site.