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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1776
by David McCullough
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
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1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History
by Jay Winik
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Age of Enlightenment
Great Ages of Man
by Peter Gay
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Age of Exploration
Great Ages of Man
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Age of Kings
Great Ages of Man
by Charles Blitzer
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Age of Voltaire
Story of Civilization IX
by Will & Ariel Durant
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Air Forces of the World
by Sue Butterworth, editor
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Album of Memories
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Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
by David J. Lonsdale
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Alice
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All Shook Up
Pivotal Moments in American History
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America 1933
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American Caesar
by William Manchester
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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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$4.80 (1 in stock)
Ancient America
Great Ages of Man
by Jonathan Norton Leonard
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Behind the Scenes
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Being American in Europe 1750-1860
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Better a Shield Than a Sword
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The Revolution Trilogy #1 of 3
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Story of Civilization III
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Cradle of Civilization
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Dead and Those About to Die
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Dearest Mama
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Eighty Days
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Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History
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Embattled Rebel
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Everyday Life in the Viking Age
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Extravagant Hunger
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Fighting for Liberty and Virtue
by Marvin Olasky
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First Great Civilizations
by Jacquetta Hawkes
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First Lady of the Revolution
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Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
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From a Name to a Number
by Alter Wiener
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Gettysburg: The Last Invasion
by Allen C. Guelzo
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Gilded Age: A History in Documents
Pages From History
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from Oxford University
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Glory and the Dream - Volume 1
by William Manchester
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by William Manchester
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Grant and Twain
by Mark Perry
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Grant Moves South
by Bruce Catton
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Greatest Generation
by Tom Brokaw
1st edition from Random House
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Greatest Generation Speaks
by Tom Brokaw
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Heritage of Persia
by Richard N. Frye
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Hidden Life of Otto Frank
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History of Aviation
by John W.R. Taylor & Kenneth Munson
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History of the English-Speaking Peoples Volume 1
by Winston S. Churchill
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History of the Medieval World
by Susan Wise Bauer
1st edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
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Hitler
by Ernst Hanfstaengl, translated and introduction by John Willard Toland, Afterword by Egon Hanfstaegl
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Honor in the Dust
by Gregg Jones
from New American Library
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Hostile Skies
by James J. Hudson
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Ike's Bluff
by Evan Thomas
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In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal
by Richard Nixon
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Jacksonland
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Jefferson Davis and His Generals
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Jerusalem, Jerusalem
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John Wanamaker: King of Merchants
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Johnstown Flood
by David McCullough
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Justinian & Theodora
by Robert Browning
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Killing the Wizards
by Alan Cowell
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Kitchener's Mob
by James Norman Hall
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Lafayette Flying Corps
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
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Land as God Made It
by James Horn
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Last Lion Volumes 1 & 2
by William Manchester
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Lexington Goes Down
by A. A. Hoehling
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Liberators
by Michael Hirsh
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Light of Days
by Judy Batalion
from William Morrow & Company
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Lost Executioner
by Nic Dunlop
1st edition from Walker and Company
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Lost Men
by Kelly Tyler-Lewis
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Lost Peace
by Robert Dallek
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Making Friends with Hitler
by Ian Kershaw
from Penguin Press
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Marching Home
by Kevin Coyne
from Viking Press
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Mathew Brady
by James D. Horan
from Bonanza Books
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$3.20 (1 in stock)
Memorial Volume of Jefferson Davis
by J. William Jones
from Sprinkle Publications
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$17.60 (2 in stock)
Milestones of Aviation
by John T. Greenwood, editor
Beaux Arts Edition from Beaux Arts Editions
for Adult
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Miracle at Philadelphia
by Catherine Drinker Bowen
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$9.00 (3 in stock)
Mirror of War: The Washington Star Reports the Civil War
by John W. Stepp, I. William Hill
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Mississippi and the Making of a Nation
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from National Geographic
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Moral Combat
by Michael Burleigh
Book Club Edition from Harper
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
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