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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by Scott O'Dell
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Addy Learns a Lesson
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1954 edition from Rand McNally
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by Marguerite Henry & Wesley Dennis
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Book of Marvels: Marvels of the Orient
by Richard Halliburton
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Book of Myths
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Brady
by Jean Fritz, illustrated by Lynd Ward
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by Katy Beebe
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by Mary Williams, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
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2006 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award
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Bud, Not Buddy
by Christopher Paul Curtis
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Little House Series #5
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1940 Newbery Honor Book
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Little House Series #5
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1936 Newbery Medal winner
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from Simon and Schuster
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1936 Newbery Medal winner
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Caleb's Choice
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by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Cricket Books
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1958 2nd Printing from Viking Press
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Child Star
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Children of Odin
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Norse Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
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Children of the Fox
by Jill Paton Walsh, illustrated by Robin Eaton
First American Edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Cleopatra VII
Royal Diaries
by Kristiana Gregory
from Scholastic Inc.
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Come on Seabiscuit
by Ralph Moody
from Houghton Mifflin
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Commodore Perry in Japan
by Robert Reynolds
from American Heritage Publishing Co.
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Courage of Sarah Noble
by Alice Dalgliesh
from Atheneum
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Courage of Sarah Noble
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Cowboy Boots
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Cowboy Sam and the Indians
by Edna Walker Chandler
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Cromwell's Head
by Olivia Coolidge, illustrated by Edward A. Wilson
from Houghton Mifflin
Historical Fiction for 4th-8th grade
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D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
from New York Review of Books
Norse Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
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$29.95
Daniel Boone, Wilderness Scout
Junior Deluxe Editions
by Stewart Edward White, illustrated by Henry C. Pitz
from Grosset & Dunlap
Biography for 4th-7th grade
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Daniel Boone, Wilderness Scout
by Stewart Edward White, illustrated by James Daugherty
from Garden City Books
Biography for 4th-7th grade
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Davy Crockett
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by Constance Rourke, illustrated by Walter Seaton
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1935 Newbery Honor Book
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Dawn Wind
by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by Charles Keeping
from Henry Z. Walck, Inc.
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Down Ryton Water
by E. R. Gaggin
from George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.
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1942 Newbery Honor
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Drumbeats in Williamsburg
by Isabelle Lawrence
from Rand McNally
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Egyptian Myths
by Jacqueline Morley (reteller), illustrated by Giovanni Caselli
from Peter Bedrick Books
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Elin's Amerika
by Marguerite de Angeli
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Elizabeth I
Royal Diaries
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Enchanted Schoolhouse
by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Hugh Troy
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Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
by Jacqueline Kelly
from Henry Holt and Company
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Eyewitness Classics: King Arthur
by Rosalind Kerven
from DK Children
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Eyewitness Classics: Robin Hood
by Neil Philip
1st American ed from DK Children
for 3rd-6th grade
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Far Frontier
by William O. Steele; illustrated by Paul Galdone
from Harcourt
for 4th-8th grade
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Farmer Boy
Little House Series #3
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$19.99
Farmer Boy
Little House Series #3
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, illustrated by Helen Sewell
from Harper & Brothers
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Farmer Boy (Pictorial Cover)
Little House Series #3
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-6th grade
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Favorite Greek Myths
by Mary Pope Osborne, illustrated by Troy Howell
from Scholastic Inc.
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Fear in the Forest
by Cateau de Leeuw
from T. Nelson & Sons
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First Four Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
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First Four Years (Pictorial Cover)
by Laura Ingalls Wilder; illustrated by Garth Williams
from Harper & Row
for 3rd-8th grade
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Flaming Arrows
by William O. Steele, Illustrated by Paul Galdone
1st edition from Harcourt
Historical Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Florentine Giraffe
by Willoughby Patton, illustrated by William M. Hutchinson
from David McKay Company
for 3rd-7th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Fortunate Grandchild
by Miss Read
1st US Edition from Houghton Mifflin
for 4th-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Frontier Wolf
by Rosemary Sutcliff
1st edition from Dutton Juvenile
for 4th-8th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Going West
by Jean Van Leeuwen, illustrated by Thomas Allen
from Dial Books for Young Readers
Historical fiction for 2nd-4th grade
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Good Queen Bess
by Diane Stanley & Peter Vennema
from HarperCollins
Biography for 3rd-6th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$18.99
Grandfather's Dance
by Patricia MacLachlan
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Greek Gods and Goddesses
by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Margaret K. McElderry Books
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Greek Myths
by Geraldine McCaughrean, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark
from Margaret K. McElderry Books
for 3rd-6th grade
Greek Myths
by Olivia Coolidge
from Houghton Mifflin
Greek Mythology for 4th-6th grade
Half-Breed
by Evelyn Sibley Lampman
from Doubleday & Company
for 4th-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Hattie Big Sky
by Kirby Larson
from Delacorte Press
for 4th-8th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Hercules
Heroes Series #4
by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Cricket Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Hitler's Daughter
by Jackie French
from HarperCollins
for 4th-7th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
House on Stink Alley
by F. N. Monjo
First Edition from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
for 3rd-5th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
How I Became an American
by Karin Gundisch
from Cricket Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Indian Summer
by F. N. Monjo
from HarperTrophy
for 2nd-5th grade
in I Can Read Books (Location: EAR-ICR)
Jack Wade, Fighter for Liberty
A Doubleday Signal Book
by Irving Werstein, illustrated by Albert Orbaan
from Doubleday & Company
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in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
January's Sparrow
by Patricia Polacco
from Philomel Books
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$16.00 (1 in stock)
Joan of Arc
by Lucy Foster Madison, illustrated by Frank E. Schoonover
from Dilithium Press, Ltd.
for 4th-10th grade
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John Billington, Friend of Squanto
by Clyde Robert Bulla
from Thomas Crowell
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in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Johnny Tremain
by Esther Forbes, illustrated by Lynd Ward
from Houghton Mifflin
for 3rd-4th
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Justin Morgan Had a Horse
G&D Famous Horse Stories
by Marguerite Henry
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Justin Morgan Had a Horse
by Marguerite Henry, illustrated by Wesley Dennis
1st edition from Rand McNally
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Justin Morgan Had a Horse
by Marguerite Henry, illustrated by Wesley Dennis
1958th edition from Rand McNally
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Justin Morgan Had a Horse (pictorial cover)
by Marguerite Henry, illustrated by Wesley Dennis
from Rand McNally
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
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