Cultural History

You'll often hear proponents of whole-book education methods talk about the benefit of learning history through literature. They aren't talking about the kind of history you might learn in a textbook—for them, knowing the dates of the Thirty Years' War or the name of the first prime minister of Australia isn't that important. The kind of history you'll learn in novels and diaries and essays is cultural history.

How people live, what they learn in school, the weapons they use, their religion, how they perceive their role in the world: these are all elements of culture that fiction and private documents reveal much better and more thoroughly than books simply detailing facts. Source documents are the product as much of the culture in which they're written, after all, as they are the result of the authors' own invention.

Books simply about the customs and daily life of a people group do have their place, too. You might not have as intimate a portrait of Victorian England after reading What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew as you would after reading Great Expectations, but you'll learn plenty. Sometimes you just need the straightforward facts, and at times like those novels are not your friends.

The real question for many, however, isn't how do I learn about different cultures?, but WHY should I learn about different cultures? Well, there's no law saying you have to, but aside from the fun you can have doing so, learning about foreign or lost cultures is one way to better understand your own place in the grand scheme of things.

It's not that the Chinese New Year festival will shed any great light on your own situation, but the deeper you study the cultural contexts around the globe, the more you realize how similar people really are. Understanding connections is one of the great advantages of a well-rounded education; the connections between people a solid grounding in cultural history can offer are especially poignant.

Of course, reading about the origins of your own culture will help you understand why you do things the way you do, why you think the way you do, why the people around you are the way they are. As Christians, this knowledge can help us share the Gospel easier than if we knew nothing of the background of the people we try to reach, and that is the one reason for studying cultural history that trumps all the others.

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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Abraham Lincoln & His Family - Paper Dolls
by Tom Tierney
from Dover Publications
for Preschool-3rd grade
in Dover Paper Dolls (Location: COL-DOLL)
$9.99
Art Coloring Book
by Sarah Courtauld
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$5.40 (1 in stock)
Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse
by Eric Carle
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Baby Blessing
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Beethoven's Heroic Symphony (Once Upon a Masterpiece)
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Boll Weevil
by Glen Rounds
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Brave Harriet
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Brother Hugo and the Bear
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$17.99
Camille and the Sunflowers
by Laurence Anholt
1st edition from Barron's
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Camille Pissarro
by Alix Wood
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Charles Darwin's Around-the-World Adventure
by Jennifer Thermes
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Child's Book of Art
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Child's Story of the Child's Book
by Raven
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Children of the World Visuals
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Christopher Columbus
by Elaine Murray Stone
500 Anv from Tyndale House
Biography for Preschool-3rd Grade
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City Book
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Civil War Artist
by Taylor Morrison
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Classical Acts and Facts Science Cards: Famous Scientists (old)
1st edition from Classical Conversations
for Kindergarten-8th grade
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Classical Acts and Facts Science Cards: Seeking to Know
2nd edition from Classical Conversations
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$23.99
Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois
by Amy Novesky, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
from Abrams Books for Young Readers
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Come Look With Me: Artist at Work
by R. Sarah Richardson
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$16.95
Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children
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$12.00
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez
Art For Children
by Ernest Raboff
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Discovering Great Artists
by MaryAnn F. Kohl & Kim Solga
2nd edition from Chicago Review Press
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$19.99
Discovering Great Artists (old)
by MaryAnn F. Kohl & Kim Solga
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$4.00 (2 in stock)
Drum Dream Girl
by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael Lopez
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Elizabeth Fry
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$11.99
Etcher's Studio
by Arthur Geisert
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Everybody Cooks Rice
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Eye for Color
by Natasha Wing, Art by Julia Breckenreid
from Henry Holt and Company
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Families Around the World
by Jo E. Moore
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Farmhouse
by Sophie Blackall
from Little, Brown & Company
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$18.99
Flight
by Robert Burleigh; illustrated by Mike Wimmer
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1992 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
George Washington Carver
by Carol Greene
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Girl with a Watering Can
by Ewa Zadrzynska, illustrated by Arnold Skolnick
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Go, Go, Go! Kids on the Move
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God’s Very Good Idea
by Trillia Newbell and Catalina Echeverri
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$16.99
Gonna Sing My Head Off
by Kathleen Krull
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Gonna Sing My Head Off
by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Allen Garns
First Printing from Scholastic Reference
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Hairdo!
by Ruth Freeman Swain, illustrated by Cat Bowman Smith
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Horn for Louis
Stepping Stones
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I Spy a Freight Train: Transportation in Art
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If the World Were 100 People
by Jackie McCann, illustrated by Aaron Cushley
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$17.99
If the World Were a Village
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Jazz on a Saturday Night
by Leo & Diane Dillon
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Joke's on George
by Michael O. Tunnell; illustrated by Kathy Osborn
from Tambourine Books
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Let's Find Out About Ice Cream
by Mary Ebeltoft Reid, photographs by John Williams
from Scholastic Inc.
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Life and Work of Auguste Rodin
by Richard Tames
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Life and Work of Frederic Remington
by Ernestine Giesecke
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Life and Work of Henry Moore
by Sean Connolly
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Linnea in Monet's Garden
by Christina Bjork & Lena Anderson
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Biography for Preschool- 3rd Grade
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Lion Dancer
by Kate Waters & Madeline Slovenz-Low, photographs by Martha Cooper
from Scholastic Inc.
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$3.50 (1 in stock)
Little Naturalists: John James Audobon Painted Birds
by Kate Coombs
from Gibbs M. Smith
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$9.99
Little Naturalists: The Adventures of John Muir
by Kate Coombs
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$11.99
Make Way
by Angela Burke Kunkel, illustrated by Claire Keane
from Random House
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$19.99
Marie
Little People, BIG DREAMS
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Me on the Map
by Joan Sweeney & Annette Cable
from Dragonfly Books
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Me on the Map
by Joan Sweeney, Illustrated by Qin Leng
from Dragonfly Books
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
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$7.99
Me on the Map
by Joan Sweeney, Illustrated by Qin Leng
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
Memoria Press Kindergarten Art Cards
from Memoria Press
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$11.50
More Than Meets the Eye
by Bob Raczka
from Millbrook Press
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
My Brothers' Flying Machine
by Jane Yolen
from Little, Brown & Company
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
My Favorite Songs
by Maria Trapp
from Veritas Press
for Kindergarten-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$17.00
My Little Island
by Frane Lessac
from HarperCollins
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
My Name is Georgia
from Harcourt, Brace & Company
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Old Ironsides
by David L. Weitzman
from Sandpiper Books
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
People
by Peter Spier
from Dell Publishing
Non-fiction for Kindergarten-4th grade
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$12.95
Rare Treasure
by Don Brown
from Houghton Mifflin
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.00 (1 in stock)
Sailing the Unknown
by Michael Rosen, Illustrated by Maria Cristina Pritelli
from Creative Editions
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Secret World of Walter Anderson
by Hester Bass, illustrated by E. B. Lewis
from Candlewick Press
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Seeker of Knowledge
by James Rumford
from Sandpiper Books
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Ancient Egypt (Location: HISW-ANEG)
$7.99
Songs to Grow On
by Beatrice Landeck, piano arrangements by Florence White, illustrated by David Stone Martin
from Edward B. Marks Music Corporation
for Kindergarten-6th grade
in Vintage Readers & Textbooks (Location: VIN-READ)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Sparky & Spike
by Barbara Lowell, illustrated by Dan Andreasen
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Picture Biography for Preschool-3rd grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.95
Strike Up the Orchestra
from Friedman / Fairfax
for Preschool-3rd grade
in Music Appreciation (Location: ELE-MUSAP)
$8.50 (1 in stock)
Sugaring Time
by Kathryn Lasky
from Aladdin Paperbacks
for Preschool-3rd grade
1984 Newbery Honor Book
in Food & Farming Around the World (Location: HISMC-FOOD)
$9.99
Sweet Dreams
by Pamela Prince, featuring art by Bessie Pease Gutmann
from Chronicle Books
for Nursery-1st grade
in Poetry for Children (Location: POET-CHIL)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Sweet Music in Harlem
by Debbie A. Taylor, Illustrated by Frank Morrison
from Lee & Low Books
for Kindergarten-2nd grade
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Three Little Indians
by Gene S. Stuart, illustrations by Louis S. Glanzman
from National Geographic
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Trombone Shorty
by Troy Andrews, illustrated by Bryan Collier
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
2016 Caldecott Honor Book, 2016 Coretta Scott King Award Winner
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$17.95
Usborne Book of Living Long Ago
by Felicity Brooks & Helen Edom
from Usborne
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in Everyday Life in History (Location: HISV-EVERY)
$7.20 (3 in stock)
Visiting the Art Museum
by Laurine Krasny Brown & Marc Brown
from Child's Play Ltd.
for Kindergarten-2nd grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
What's Inside? Boats
What's Inside?
from DK Publishing
for Preschool- 3rd Grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)