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
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
by David J. Lonsdale
from Carroll & Graf Publishers
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$5.00 (2 in stock)
Amazing Mr. Doolittle
by Quentin Reynolds
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America 1933
by Michael Golay
from Free Press
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America the Beautiful/ A Man of Destiny
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from Country Beautiful
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American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
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An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by M. K. Gandhi
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Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
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Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
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B. Franklin, Printer
by David A. Adler
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Battle from the Start
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Beyond Stateliest Marble
Leaders in Action Series
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Bombs and Blessings
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C. S. Lewis: A Life
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Call of Duty
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Calvin and the Calvinists
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Captain Cook R. N. the Resolute Mariner
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Captured!
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Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
by Leslie Alexander Lacy, illustrated by James Barkley
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Comes the Comrade!
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Constantine the Great
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Death Valley Scotty
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Diary of a Young Girl
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Earth is the Lord's
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Easy Company Soldier
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Edwardian Lady
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Embattled Rebel
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Endurance
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Leaders in Action Series
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Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
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From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya
by Ruth Tucker
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George MacDonald
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Illustrated Edition from Bethany House
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George Whitefield: Wayfaring Witness
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Give Me Liberty
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Great Adventures That Changed Our World
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Great Lion of God
by Taylor Caldwell
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
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Great Waters
by Creston Donald Ketchum
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Greater Journey
by David McCullough
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
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Greek Treasure
by Irving Stone
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
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Guest of the Revolution
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In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal
by Richard Nixon
1st edition from Simon & Schuster Macmillan
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Ishi: Last of His Tribe
by Theodora Kroeber
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James I
Sacred Fool Quartet Volume 1
by Otto Scott
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Jefferson Davis and His Generals
by Steven E. Woodworth
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John Brown Russwurm
by Mary Sagarin, Introduction by Ernest Kaiser
1st edition from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
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John Calvin: Man of the Millennium
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John Wanamaker: King of Merchants
by William Allen Zulker
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Jonathan Edwards
by Iain H. Murray
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Joshua Barney
by Ralph D. Paine
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Last Grain Race
by Eric Newby
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$32.00 (1 in stock)
Last Lion Volumes 1 & 2
by William Manchester
1st edition from Little, Brown & Company
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Laura Ingalls Wilder: Pioneer Girl
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
from South Dakota State Historical Society Press
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Letters of Geerhardus Vos
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Life & Letters of Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man
by J. William Jones
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Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
from Moody Press
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Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
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Life and Times of Martin Luther
by J. H. Merle D'Aubigne, translated by H. White
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Life of Andrew Jackson
by John S. Jenkins
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Life of John Calvin
by Theodore Beza
3rd edition from Back Home Industries
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Life of John Knox
by Thomas McCrie
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Life of John Newton
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Life of Washington
by Anna Reed
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Lifetime of Wisdom
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Livingstone and his African Journeys
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Log of "Bob" Bartlett
by Captain Robert A. Bartlett
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Longitude
by Dava Sobel
1st edition from Penguin Books
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Lost Peace
by Robert Dallek
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Maria
by Maria von Trapp
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Mariner of the North
by George Palmer Putnam
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Martin Luther
Penguin Lives
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Mathew Brady
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Memorial Volume of Jefferson Davis
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Mosby's Rangers
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Oregon Trail
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Oregon Trail
Famous Books for Young Americans
by Francis Parkman
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Our Mountain Hermitage
by Anne Roller Issler
from Stanford University Press
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Peter the Great: His Life and World
by Robert K. Massie
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Plutarch's Lives Volume I
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Presidency of George Washington
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R. v. R.: The Life of Rembrandt Van Rijn
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Ranch under the Rimrock
by Dorothy Lawson McCall
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Robert E. Lee: A Life Portrait
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Ronald Reagan
by Dinesh D'Souza
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Roots
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Saint Augustine
by Garry Wills
1st edition from Viking Press
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Saint Jean-Marie Vianney
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Sam Houston
by Noel Gerson
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Samuel De Champlain
by Samuel E. Morison
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So Long Until Tomorrow
by Lowell Thomas
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Story of Polar Conquest
by Logan Marshall, ed.
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$16.00 (1 in stock)
Supreme Commander
by Seymour Morris Jr.
from HarperCollins
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Then Darkness Fled
Leaders in Action Series
by Stephen Mansfield
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$16.95
Three Days in January
by Brett Baier with Catherine Whitney
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
TimeFrame #05: A Soaring Spirit
from Time-Life Books
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
TimeFrame #06: Empires Ascendant
from Time-Life Books
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TimeFrame #07: Empires Besieged
from Time-Life Books
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TimeFrame #08: March of Islam
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To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
35 Anv from HarperTrophy
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
1961 Pulitzer Prize winner
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$26.99
To Live Again
by Catherine Marshall
from McGraw-Hill
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Traitor and the Spy
by James Thomas Flexner
1st edition from Harcourt, Brace & Company
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
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