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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Admiral of the Ocean Sea
by Samuel E. Morison
from Atlantic Monthly Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt
Book Club Edition from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 6th-10th grade
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$14.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
from International Collectors Library
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$11.50 (1 in stock)
B. Franklin, Printer
by David A. Adler
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Battle from the Start
by Brian Steel Wills
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Beyond Stateliest Marble
Leaders in Action Series
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from Cumberland House
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Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Book of Famous Explorers
Young Folks Library
by Edwin Erle Sparks, editor
from Auxiliary Educational League
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Call of Duty
Leaders in Action Series
by Steve Wilkins
from Cumberland House
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Captain Edward L. Beach: Around the World Under Water
by Beril Becker
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Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
by Leslie Alexander Lacy, illustrated by James Barkley
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Christopher Columbus
by Samuel Eliot Morison
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Constantine the Great
by Michael Grant
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Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
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Early Days of a Cowboy on the Pecos
by James F. Hinkle
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Edwardian Lady
by Ina Taylor
from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
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Emancipation Proclomation
by Tonya Bolden
from Abrams Books for Young Readers
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Endurance
by Caroline Alexander
1st edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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$12.00 (2 in stock)
Escape from Corregidor
by Edward D. Whitcomb
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Explorers, Missionaries, and Trappers
by Kieran Doherty
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Forgotten Founding Father
Leaders in Action Series
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Biography for 9th-12th grade
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George Washington's World (pictorial hardcover)
by Genevieve Foster
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George Washington: Soldier and Man
by North Callahan
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George Whitefield: Wayfaring Witness
by Stuart C. Henry
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$7.50 (1 in stock)
Give Me Liberty
Leaders in Action Series
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Greek Treasure
by Irving Stone
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Inventing America: The Life of Benjamin Franklin
by Mark Essig
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James Fenimore Cooper
by Donald A. Ringe
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
John Brown Russwurm
by Mary Sagarin, Introduction by Ernest Kaiser
1st edition from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
John James Audubon: Painting America's Wildlife
by Janet Stevenson, illustrated by Robert Boehmer
from Encyclopedia Britannica
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Kennedy Assassinated! The World Mourns
by Wilborn Hampton
from Candlewick Press
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1998 NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book
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Lady of Arlington
by Harnett T. Kane
from Doubleday & Company
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Life & Times of Beethoven
by Gino Pugnetti
from Curtis Publishing Co.
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Life & Times of Elizabeth I
by Massimo Rossaro
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Life & Times of Louis XIV
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Life & Times of Napoleon
by Mario Rivoire
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Life & Times of Peter the Great
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Life & Times of St. Francis
by Agostino Ghilardi
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Life & Times of Washington
by Mario Rivoire, translated by C.J. Richards
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Lindbergh Alone
by Brendan Gill
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Maria
by Maria von Trapp
from Creation House
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Martin Luther
by Sally Stepanek
from Chelsea House Publishing
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Mathew Brady
by James D. Horan
from Bonanza Books
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Never Dies the Dream
by Margaret Landon
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Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Maynard Dixon
from Heritage Press
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Oregon Trail
Famous Books for Young Americans
by Francis Parkman
from A. L. Burt Company
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Our Mountain Hermitage
by Anne Roller Issler
from Stanford University Press
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Plutarch's Lives Volume I
by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden
from Modern Library
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$20.00 $15.00 (1 in stock)
Presidency of George Washington
by Jack D. Warren, Jr.
from University of Virginia Press
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$5.00 (2 in stock)
Queen Elizabeth I: Forging an Empire
by Elizabeth Linington, illustrated by Robert Boehmer
from Kingston House
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Ranch under the Rimrock
by Dorothy Lawson McCall
from Binford & Mort Publishing
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Sam Houston
by Noel Gerson
from Doubleday & Company
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Samuel De Champlain
by Samuel E. Morison
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Scottish Chiefs
by Jane Porter, edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from Charles Scribner's Sons
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$20.00 (1 in stock)
Sir Walter Raleigh and the Quest for El Dorado
by Marc Aronson
from Clarion Books
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2001 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner
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Standing Like a Stone Wall
by James I. Robertson Jr.
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Story of Polar Conquest
by Logan Marshall, ed.
from Vision Forum
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$16.00 (1 in stock)
Time Great People of the 20th Century
by Kelly Knauer, editor
from Time-Life Books
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$14.00 (1 in stock)
To Live Again
by Catherine Marshall
from McGraw-Hill
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Trails Plowed Under
by Charles M. Russell
from Doubleday & Company
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
Twelve Seconds to the Moon
by Rosamond Young & Catharine Fitzgerald
2nd edition from Air Force Museum Foundation, Inc.
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Twilight Struggle
by Barbara Harrison, Daniel Terris
1st edition from HarperCollins
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Undersea Adventure
by Philippe Diole, translated from the French by Alan Ross
3rd Printing from Julian Messner
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Walter Reed: Vanquishing Yellow Fever
by Edward F. Dolan, illustrated by Dan Siculan
from Encyclopedia Britannica
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When Lightning Struck!
by Danika Cooley
from Fortress Press
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Wild West
Book Club from Time-Life Books
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Willa
by Ruth Franchere
from Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
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$7.50 (1 in stock)
Wurmbrand: Tortured for Christ
by Voice of the Martyrs
from David C. Cook
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$14.00 (1 in stock)
Zookeeper's Wife
by Diane Ackerman
from W. W. Norton and Co.
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$5.00 (1 in stock)