Chronological History

Sometimes we speak of world history as though it belongs to people. It doesn't—it belongs to God, and though people play prominently within the historical narrative, it always remains under God's auspices and control. The problem with losing the right perspective isn't that we'll get the facts wrong, it's that we'll fail to understand what they mean, what the purpose of past events is, and what we can look forward to.

Human history began all at once in the same place: the Garden of Eden, where God made Adam and Eve as the crown of all Creation. He told them to fill the earth and take dominion of it, and He also told them not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They ate the fruit anyway, and mankind was removed from paradise and introduced to tension, pain, and resistance.

The story of the world is in many ways simply the story of adversity. For the enemies of God, it's adversity in the form of the failure and futility of purely human endeavor; for God's people, it's the story of fighting for the truth against secular philosophies, fighting for holiness despite the pervasiveness of sin, and fighting for the Gospel in the face of persecution and death.

Jesus Christ is our only hope. He is the Prince of Peace, the defeater of Death, and the King of the Universe, the saver of souls and the punisher of wickedness. His kingdom is the restoration and glorious fulfillment of the paradise from which Adam and Eve were removed, and we work, wait, hope and pray for the quick fulfillment of His will in all things.

This is our framework for history. While it's important to study things like the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the ancient Near East, it's only important when investigated through the lens of God's ultimate sovereignty and plan. The story of mankind is the story of redemption, and only when we analyze battles, kings, treaties, and catastrophes from God's perspective can we truly make sense of them.

Otherwise, it's all fairly irrelevant and useless. Sure, there's Napoleon's dictum that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, but a quick survey of the past will show that each successive generation does repeat the sins of their fathers, and that without Christ's real physical life on Earth as a centering point, there's no real cause for optimism or hope of any kind.

Christ's love not only makes the trajectory of history cause for hope; it reveals the truly great moments of the past, events that to the secular eye seem insignificant or even pernicious. We're speaking of the progress of the true Church, of course, and of each soul that God calls and makes His own through the agency of His Holy Spirit. These are the milestones we look for and celebrate.

We carry a lot of world history products. Because it's the story of God's work in the world and our human responses, we believe it's important to know and understand. Not everything we carry is Christian; there are plenty of secular resources here. We encourage you to use whichever ones work best for your situation, but that you do so with a view to understanding the will and work of the One who made history in the first place.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

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Anna of Byzantium
by Tracy Barrett
from Random House
Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
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Annotated Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett, edited by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
Annotated from W. W. Norton and Co.
Realistic Fiction for 4th-9th grade
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1932 Newbery Honor Book
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Calico Captive
by Elizabeth George Speare
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Captain, My Captain
by Deborah Meroff
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Coronation of Glory
Reformation Trail Series #12
by Deborah Meroff
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Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family
All-of-a-Kind Family Series #5
by Sydney Taylor, illustrated by Gail Owens
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First Four Years
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1930 Newbery Medal winner
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Mara, Daughter of the Nile
by Eloise J. McGraw
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Memories of a Berlin Childhood
by Marianne Buchwalter
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Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
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1998 Newbery Medal winner
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Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
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Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
1st edition from Scholastic Inc.
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1998 Newbery Medal winner
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Outcast
by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by Richard Kennedy
from Sunburst Book
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Outcast
by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by Richard Kennedy
from Oxford University
Historical Fiction for 6th-9th grade
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Pearl Maiden
by H. Rider Haggard
from Christian Liberty Press
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Sarah Bishop
by Scott O'Dell
from Scholastic Inc.
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Scarlet Pimpernel
Signet Classics
by Baroness Orczy
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Scarlet Pimpernel
by Baroness Orczy
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Scottish Chiefs
by Jane Porter
from Beautiful Feet Books
Historical Epic for 8th-10th grade
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Scottish Chiefs
by Jane Porter
from CreateSpace
Historical Epic for 8th-10th grade
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$14.95
Shining Company
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from Sunburst Book
Historical Fiction for 6th-9th grade
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$15.99
Shining Company
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Silver Branch
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Silver Branch
by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by Charles Keeping
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Historical Fiction for 6th-9th grade
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Single Shard
by Linda Sue Park
from Sandpiper Books
Realistic fiction for 5th-8th grade
2002 Newbery Medal winner
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$8.99
Story of the Trapp Family Singers
by Maria Augusta Trapp
from HarperCollins
Biography for 7th-10th grade
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$16.99
Streams to the River, River to the Sea
by Scott O'Dell
from Houghton Mifflin
Historical Fiction for 7th-9th grade
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Streams to the River, River to the Sea
by Scott O'Dell
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Swallows' Flight
by Hilary McKay
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$17.99
Sword and the Circle
Arthurian Trilogy #1
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from Puffin Books
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 4th-8th grade
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$7.99
Sword and the Circle
Arthurian Trilogy #1
by Rosemary Sutcliff
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 4th-8th grade
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These Happy Golden Years
Little House Series #8
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
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1944 Newbery Honor Book
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$8.99
These Happy Golden Years
Little House Series #8
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
1944 Newbery Honor Book
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$19.99
These Happy Golden Years
Little House Series #8
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Library edition from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
1944 Newbery Honor Book
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
These Happy Golden Years - Audio CD
Little House Series #8
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
1944 Newbery Honor Book
in Audio Books & Dramas (Location: CD-AUDIO)
$25.95
Tristan and Iseult
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from Sunburst Book
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 7th-9th grade
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$15.99
Tristan and Iseult
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from E.P. Dutton & Co.
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 7th-9th grade
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Well Done, Denehurst!
by Gwendoline Courtney
from Girls Gone By Publishers
for 6th-9th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Witch of Blackbird Pond
by Elizabeth George Speare
Reissue from Sandpiper Books
Historical Fiction for 4th-8th grade
1959 Newbery Medal winner
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$9.99
World of Little House
by Carolyn Strom Collins & Christina Wyss Eriksson
from HarperCollins
Literature Resource for 4th-8th grade
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$29.99