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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18 Penny Goose
An I Can Read Book Level 3
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Across Five Aprils
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1965 Newbery Honor Book
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Across Five Aprils
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Adam of the Road
Puffin Newbery Library
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Adam of the Road
Puffin Modern Classics
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Devil's Arithmetic
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Endless Steppe
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Gathering of Days
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Ghost in the Tokaido Inn
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Gods and Generals
by Jeff Shaara
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Going West
by Jean Van Leeuwen
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Golden Goblet
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Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell
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Good Master
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Good Night, Mr. Tom
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Great Turkey Walk
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Guns for General Washington
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Hitty
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1930 Newbery Medal winner
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House of Dies Drear
by Virginia Hamilton
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House of Sixty Fathers
by Meindert DeJong & Maurice Sendak
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1957 Newbery Honor Book
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In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
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Indian Captive
by Lois Lenski
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1942 Newbery Honor Book
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Inquisitor's Tale
by Adam Gidwitz
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Ivanhoe
Signet Classics
by Sir Walter Scott
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Ivanhoe
Penguin Classics
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Jo's Boys OSI
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Johnny Tremain
by Esther Forbes
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1944 Newbery Medal winner
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Journey Home
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Journey to America
Journey to America Saga #1
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Justin Morgan Had a Horse
by Marguerite Henry; illustrated by Wesley Dennis
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1946 Newbery Honor Book
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Kidnapped Prince
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Killer Angels
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King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
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by Roger Green
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King's Fifth
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King's Shadow
by Elizabeth Alder
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Kite Rider
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by Thor Heyerdahl
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Land I Lost
by Quang Nhuong Huynh
from HarperTrophy
Memoir for 4th-6th grade
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Lantern in Her Hand
by Bess Streeter Aldrich
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Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
Reprint from Signet Classics
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$5.95
Les Miserables
Signet Classics
by Victor Hugo, translated by Lee Fahnestock & Norman MacAfee
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$11.99
Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt
by C. Coco De Young
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Lion to Guard Us
by Clyde Robert Bulla
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Little House - Softcover Boxed Set
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
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$79.91
Little Men
Puffin Classics
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Little Riders
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Little Women
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Long Way to a New Land
An I Can Read Book Level 3
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Long Way Westward
An I Can Read Book Level 3
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Mara, Daughter of the Nile
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Mary, Bloody Mary
A Young Royals Book
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Matchlock Gun
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Minstrel in the Tower
by Gloria Skurzynski
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Moonshiner's Son
by Carolyn Reeder
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Mr. Popper's Penguins
by Richard & Florence Atwater, illustrated by Jim Madsen
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Humorous Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
1939 Newbery Honor Book
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$8.99
Mr. Revere and I
by Robert Lawson
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My Brother Sam Is Dead
by James & Christopher Collier
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Historical Fiction for 5th-8th grade
1975 Newbery Honor Book
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No Promises in the Wind
by Irene Hunt
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Historical Fiction for 6th-9th grade
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Odyssey (retold)
Puffin Classics
by Geraldine McCaughrean retells Homer
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