Modern History

There isn't more history in the last five centuries than all the previous millennia, we just have more plentiful records of it. In all honesty, sometimes the plethora of detail isn't only overwhelming, it obscures the whole point of the story. As humans, we're all too susceptible to the lure of obscurity, to the desire for darkness where there ought to be light.

In many ways, this is the chief characteristic of modern history. Mankind seems to have accepted Enlightenment ideals en masse, and the result is the non-stop acquisition of knowledge, as though information could shut us off from the eye of a just and jealous God. Evolutionary theory, psychology, existentialism and postmodernism, public education, Communism—all these ideas are intended to put man at a further remove from God.

During the Renaissance, thinkers and artists decided that if man was going to make himself great, he'd have to replicate the glory of the Classical Era, with its enduring artifacts and intellectual produce. Enlightenment thinkers took this one step further, insisting that man could only know what he could deduce using reason alone, and consequently amassing knowledge in order to have a more thorough basis for such reasonable inquiry.

Since then, philosophers and scientists have devoted themselves to interpreting the facts from a purely human perspective, creating a picture of the universe that is mechanistic and godless. Meaning is dead, God is dead, and hope is dead, but the Enlightenment ideal of human progress (repackaged as Darwinian naturalism) is alive and well, the phantom idol of countless millions.

Even a brief survey of the last century would seem to demolish the possibility of any such idea, but it continues to inform nearly every element of our culture, from pop music to public policy debates. Atrocities like the Holocaust, racism in America, abortion, and totalitarian rule in Asian countries are reinterpreted or explained away to fit the overarching rubrik of sustained forward progress.

Christians understand things a bit differently. We aren't pessimists by any means, but we aren't blind optimists, either. God's plan entails one thing: His ultimate glory, and for those who believe His promises and trust Him for salvation, that's the most hopeful doctrine conceivable. At the same time, we also understand that man's efforts cannot be responsible for whatever good befalls us, that "progress" is only a gift of the Most High, and that only through the Holy Spirit is evil overcome by good.

The modern world is increasingly secular. Even in the Church, men and women stray from biblical truth in favor of appealing arguments on behalf of man, substituting a Christ-centered Gospel with one that is primarily focused on mankind and our individual salvation. We must counter these attitudes with God's truth, but we can only do so with an understanding of where those ideas come from and why they've taken root. A thorough study of modern history can and will provide those answers, and teach us how to stand firm in the truth we hold dear.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and 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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231 Items found Print
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Abe Lincoln Grows Up
by Carl Sandburg, illustrated by James Daugherty
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Sterling Classics
by Mark Twain, illustrated by Scott McKowen
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Windermere Readers #10
by Hector Malot, translated by Gil Meynier, adapted by Edith Heal
1954 edition from Rand McNally
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Alamo All Stars
Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #6
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Album of the Civil War
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All Aboard for Freedom
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All Thirteen
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America in the 1900s and 1910s
Decades of American History
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Decades of American History
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America is Born
A History for Peter #1
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America's Heroes
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American Heroes of the 20th Century
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American Plague
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2004 Newbery Honor Book, 2004 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner, NCTE Orbi Pictus Award
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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt
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Annotated Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett, edited by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
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Ark, The
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Big Annie of Calumet
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Black Man in America
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Bomb
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2013 Newbery Honor Book, 2013 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner
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Boys in the Boat adapted for Young Readers
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Carver: A Life in Poems
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2002 Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Award
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Chariot in the Sky
Land of the Free Series
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Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London
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Child Star
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Children of the Wild West
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Civil War Battles
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Colonial American Home Life
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Colonial Governor
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Colonization of the Moon
by D. S. Halacy, Jr.
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Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun
by Rhoda Blumberg
1st edition from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
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Countdown
by Deborah Wiles
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Dark Frigate
by Charles Boardman Hawes, illustrated by Warrenn Chappell
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DK Eyewitness: Explorer
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DK Eyewitness: Explorer
DK Eyewitness Series
by Rupert Matthews
1st edition from DK Publishing
HIstory Reference for 4th-8th grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Do's and Don'ts of Yesteryear
by Eric Sloane
from Dover Publications
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Dragonfly Eyes
by Cao Wenxuan, translated from the Chinese by Helen Wang
from Candlewick Press
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Early Days of a Cowboy on the Pecos
by James F. Hinkle
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Eating the Plates
by Lucille Recht Penner
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Elizabeth Prentiss
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Emancipation Proclomation
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Empires Lost and Won
by Albert Marrin
1st edition from Atheneum
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Escape from Corregidor
by Edward D. Whitcomb
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Escape or Die
by Ina R. Friedman
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Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
by Jacqueline Kelly
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Exploration and Conquest
by Betsy & Giulio Maestro
1st edition from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
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Exploration and Conquest
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1st edition from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
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Explorers & Discoverers - 4 Volume Set
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Explorers, Missionaries, and Trappers
by Kieran Doherty
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Facing West
by Kathleen V. Kudlinski
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Fallout
by Steve Sheinkin
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2022 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
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Far Frontier
by William O. Steele; illustrated by Paul Galdone
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Fields of Fury
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Fight for Freedom
by Benson Bobrick
1st edition from Atheneum
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First Four Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
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First Four Years (Pictorial Cover)
by Laura Ingalls Wilder; illustrated by Garth Williams
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For You They Signed
by Marilyn Boyer
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$27.99 $18.00 (1 in stock)
Fortune's Bones
by Marilyn Nelson, notes and annotations by Pamela Espeland
from Front Street
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2005 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Freewater
by Amina Luqman Dawson
from Little, Brown & Company
for 5th-8th grade
2023 Newbery Medal Winner
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$16.99
From Ballots to Breadlines
Young Oxford History of Women in the United States Volume 8
by Sarah Jane Deutsch
from Oxford University
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
From Colonies to Country with George Washington - Book Only
My American Journey
by Deborah Hedstrom
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From Log Cabin to White House with Abraham Lincoln - Set
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George Washington
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George Washington's World (pictorial hardcover)
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George Washington: Soldier and Man
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Girl Who Drew Butterflies
by Joyce Sidman
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2019 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner
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Golden Age
by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish
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Good Fight
by Stephen Ambrose
from Atheneum
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Good Ol' Cowboy Stories
by Jack Terry
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Great Discoveries and Amazing Adventures
by Claire Llewellyn
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Great Explorers
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Historic Communities
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Haym Salomon: Liberty's Son
by Shirley Milgrim, illustrated by Richard Fish
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Helmet of Navarre
by Burke Wilkinson, illustrated by James W. Williamson
Second Printing from Macmillan
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Hitler Youth
by Susan Bartoletti
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2006 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
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$21.99
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
by Rachel Field, illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop
1969 printing from Macmillan
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1930 Newbery Medal Winner
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Homesick: My Own Story
by Jean Fritz
from Penguin Putnam
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Horses of Anger
by James Forman
2nd Printing from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
How High Can We Climb?
by Jeannine Atkins
1st edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Ice Story
by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
1st edition from Clarion Books
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Inventing America: The Life of Benjamin Franklin
by Mark Essig
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Irish Americans
by James Mullin
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$2.00 (1 in stock)
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