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History CurriculumHistory Resources

As with most things, C.S. Lewis had a unique view of history. For him, the really important bits were the stories—he makes a distinction between actual historical realities and the idealized versions of them handed down which make heroes and villains of mere men and women. It's not that the stories are completely false, but their value is for character-building, not as factual data.

The tales of George Washington's bravery in battle, coolness under pressure, rigorous truthfulness, and unflagging piety may accurately preserve the essence of his temperament and nobility, but not all of them are strictly historical. The point of these stories isn't to impart facts, however, it's to offer an example of goodness for the rest of us to emulate.

Getting the facts right is still important, though. As Christians, we can't afford to have a false understanding of "the old days." Mankind is fallen, and the story of his sojourn on Earth is filled with war, suffering, disease, unfaithfulness, pride and envy; a study of history that omits those elements is both false and useless. False, because it is incomplete, and useless, because it tells us nothing of the human condition or our current situation.

It's a bit of a mystery to us why non-Christians are motivated to study the past. For believers, the end goal isn't just acquisition of facts about events and cultures, it's the instillation of a thoroughly Christian worldview, an understanding of the course of the human endeavour as decreed and guided by God Himself.

The story of Jesus Christ is central. It is the only history story that fulfills the character-building element Lewis looked for, while remaining absolutely true in every detail. Man is fallen and he does struggle against God, but through Christ there is hope of redemption, a chance to connect heaven and earth through the Atonement. Christ is the ultimate example of God's providence.

In the Reformed tradition, God's sovereignty is a very big deal. According to the doctrine of divine decree, God has ordered all things that were, are and will come to be for His own good pleasure and glory. His hand is thus present everywhere, in the privatest private life and the most public and widespread crisis. God is in control, providentially guiding nations, men, and the entire cosmos.

This very doctrine is perhaps what best explains the humanist's interest in history (whether he be atheist, agnostic, pagan). Man's natural bent is to make himself the hero of the story, to show how people can sway the trajectory of all things. God's version is quite different, and the two are naturally in conflict. Resolution may only be found in Christ.

For, while God decrees and guides all things, He has also (paradoxically) decreed man's free will and personal responsibility. Men do change the course of kingdoms, but it is only through God's agency. A proper Christian study of history takes both truths into account, and tells the stories of good guys and bad guys through the light of everything God's Word says about human nature and divine control.

We encourage you to take great comfort and joy in your study of history. Read books, watch movies (carefully noting that a lot of the story is likely to be inaccurate in detail), go on fieldtrips to forts and battlefields and birthplaces. Most of all, talk about these things. The end goal, after all, isn't to know a bunch of trivia, but to understand what God has done and continues to do.

No one knows for sure what the end of history will look like, except that every knee in heaven and on earth will bow to the returned glorious Christ, who comes to judge the living and the dead. What we believe about Him will determine whether that culmination will be filled with joy or loathing (everyone will be terrified). He is the author of history, and its centerpiece; honor Him in your study of it.

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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'But Now I See': The Life of John Newton
by Josiah Bull
from Banner of Truth Trust
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
1066: The Year of the Conquest
by David Howarth
from Penguin Putnam
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$16.00 $8.00 (1 in stock)
1861: The Civil War Awakening
by Adam Goodheart
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
by G. Frederick Owen
from Tyndale House
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
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Aeneid
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Aeschylus I: The Oresteia (old)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
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from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus, translated by Phillip Vellacott
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00 $7.00 (1 in stock)
Age of Religious Wars
by Richard S. Dunn
2nd edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
from Penguin Random House
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$10.00 (2 in stock)
America's Christian History
by Gary DeMar
2nd edition from American Vision Press
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
America's Longest War
by George C. Herring
2nd edition from McGraw-Hill
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
America's Providential History
by Mark Beliles & Stephen McDowell
from Providence Foundation
in America's Christian Heritage (Location: HISA-CH)
$8.00 (6 in stock)
American Civil War
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
American Covenant
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$7.50 (1 in stock)
American Passage
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Revolutionaries
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Analects
by Confucius; translated by Annping Chin
from Penguin Random House
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient City
by Hazel Dodge, Peter Connolly
First Thus from Oxford University
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$14.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient Egypt
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from Oxford University
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$18.00 (1 in stock)
Annals
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Anne Bradstreet
by Heidi L. Nichols
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Biography for 10th-Adult
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$13.99 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works
Oxford World's Classics
by Anselm, edited and introduction by Brian Davies and Gillian Evans
from Oxford University
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$14.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Arms and Armor Annual
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
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from Tuttle Publishing
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$4.80 (1 in stock)
Art of the Catapult
by William Gurstelle
from Chicago Review Press
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
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by Peter and Linda Murray
1999 reprint from Thames and Hudson
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by Sun Tzu
Later Printing from Dover Publications
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Arts of the Sailor
by Hervey Garrett Smith
Reprint from Dover Publications
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Association of Small Bombs
by Karan Mahajan
from Penguin Books
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
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by Carl Waldman
1st edition from Facts On File
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$9.50 (1 in stock)
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by Dow Beckham
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Beat to Quarters
Hornblower Series #6
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from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
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$16.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Between Worlds
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$11.00 (1 in stock)
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Book of Books #2
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
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by Herman Melville
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Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
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Birth of the New Physics
by I. Bernard Cohen
Revised and Updated from W. W. Norton and Co.
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
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by Mary Cable
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$8.50 (1 in stock)
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Book of Old Ships
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from Dover Publications
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Born Again
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$19.99 $14.00 (1 in stock)
Born to Run
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from Vintage Books
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by Gwen Terasaki
from Rock Creek Books
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$15.99 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Bruchko
by Bruce Olson
Updated from Charisma House
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Bruchko
by Bruce Olson
Revised from YWAM Publishing
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Bruchko and the Motilone Miracle
by Bruce Olson
from Charisma House
Biography for 10th-Adult
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$14.99 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Brunelleschi's Dome
from Penguin Books
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Buffalo Bill and the Wild West
by Henry Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright
Reprint from International Cody Family Assoc.
for Adult
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Burial at Thebes
by Sophocles, translated by Seamus Heaney
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Buried Cities
by Jennie Hall
from Dodo Press
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
By the Sword
by Richard Cohen
from Modern Library
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Captain Dreyfus
by Nicholas Halasz
from Grove Press, Inc.
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$1.00 (1 in stock)
Carolingian Chronicles
by Bernhard Walter Scholz (translator) with Barbara Rogers
2000 Printing from University of Michigan Press
for Adult
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Christian Almanac
by George Grant, Gregory Wilbur
from Cumberland House
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$9.50 (1 in stock)
Christian History Made Easy
Rose Bible Basics
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$14.99 $10.50 (1 in stock)
Christianity and the Constitution
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$25.00 $15.00 (1 in stock)
Chronological and Background Charts of Church History
ZondervanCharts
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from Zondervan
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Chronological and Background Charts of the New Testament
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Biblical Reference for 9th-Adult
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament
by John Walton
2nd edition from Zondervan
Biblical Reference for 9th-Adult
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Church History from the Birth of Christ to the 18th Century (2 volumes)
by William Jones
from Triangle Press
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Church History in Plain Language (old)
by Bruce L. Shelley
2nd edition from Thomas Nelson Publishers
Church History Reference for 10th-Adult
in Church History Overviews (Location: XCH-OVE)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Church History in Plain Language (old)
by Bruce L. Shelley
3rd edition from Thomas Nelson Publishers
Church History Reference for 9th-Adult
in Church History Overviews (Location: XCH-OVE)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Churchill: Walking with Destiny
by Andrew Roberts
from Penguin Books
for Adult
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War Songbook
from Dover Publications
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in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War: A History
by Harry Hansen, Introduction by Richard S. Wheeler, Foreword by Gary Gallagher
from New American Library
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance
by John R. Hale
from HarperCollins
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Classic Myths to Read Aloud
by William F. Russell
from Three Rivers Press
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$16.00 $9.50 (1 in stock)
Collector, The
by Jack Nisbet
from Sasquatch Books
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Colonial Period: 1607-1750
American History by Era Volume 2
by Brenda Stalcup (editor)
from Greenhaven Press
for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$11.00 (1 in stock)
Commentary on Peter & Jude
by Martin Luther, translated and edited by John Nichols Lenker
from Kregel Publications
for Adult
in Bible Commentaries (Location: XBI-COMM)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Commodore Hornblower
Hornblower Series #9
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$16.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Communist Manifesto
Penguin Classics
by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
from Penguin Classics
Political Philosophy for 10th-Adult
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Concise History of Ireland
by Fitzroy Maclean
3 Sub from Thames and Hudson
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Creative Drawing
by Howard J. Smagula
from Brown & Benchmark Publishers
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Cry, the Beloved Country
by Alan Paton
from Charles Scribner's Sons
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in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00 $6.00 (2 in stock)
Czech Reader
by Jan Bazant, Nina Bazantova, and Frances Starn, editors
from Duke University Press
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Daily Life in Johnson's London
by Richard B. Schwartz
1st edition
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$2.00 (1 in stock)
Daughter of Auschwitz
by Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant
from Hanover Square Press
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Daughter's Devotion
by George MacDonald, edited by Michael R. Phillips
from Bethany House
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Dayuma
by Ethel Emily Wallis
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$14.99 $7.50 (1 in stock)
Defining Moment
by Jonathan Alter
from Simon and Schuster
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Devil in Massachusetts
by Marion L. Starkey
from Anchor Books
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Napoleanic Foot Soldier
by Jakob Walter
from Penguin Putnam
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in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
from Anchor Books
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
Dictionary of the Roman Empire
by Matthew Bunson
from Oxford University
for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Rome (Location: HISW-ANRO)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Dionysus Rising
by E. Michael Jones
from Ignatius Press
for Adult
in Culture & Discernment (Location: XCU-DIS)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Dore's Illustrations for "Paradise Lost"
by Gustave Dore
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$14.95 $7.50 (1 in stock)
Dubliners
by James Joyce
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.00 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Earth is Weeping
by Peter Cozzens
from Vintage Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Eighteenth Century Europe
by Isser Woloch
from W. W. Norton and Co.
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Einstein's Cosmos
by Michio Kaku
from W. W. Norton and Co.
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Elizabeth I
Jackdaw No. 53
from Jackdaw Publications
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in Renaissance & Reformation (Location: HISW-REN)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men
by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
1st edition from Open Court Publishing
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century
by David Bushnell & Neill Macaulay
from Oxford University
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Enchantress of Florence
by Salman Rushdie
Reprint from Anchor Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Endurance
by Alfred Lansing
from Tyndale House
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$16.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
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