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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Abraham Lincoln's World
by Genevieve Foster, expanded by Joanna Foster
from Beautiful Feet Books
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Admiral Richard Byrd
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Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
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Al Capone Does My Shirts
by Gennifer Choldenko
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Alexander the Great
Sterling Point Books
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Alfred the Great
by Asser
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All That Glitters
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And the Word Came With Power
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Sons of Liberty Series
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Born to Run
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1956 Newbery Medal winner
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Chance to Die
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Come On, Seabiscuit!
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Evidence Not Seen
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For God and His People
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Forgotten Spurgeon
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Four Voyages
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George Washington
Sterling Point Books
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George Washington & the Founding of a Nation
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George Whitefield
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Girl in a Cage
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Glimpses of Truth
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God and Ronald Reagan
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God's Mountain Man
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God's Smuggler
by Brother Andrew
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Going Solo
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Governor of England
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Great Adventurers of the Twentieth Century
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by Helen Keller
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Here I Stand
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Here I Stand
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Hero Tales
by Theodore Roosevelt & Henry Cabot Lodge
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Hero Tales from American History
by Theodore Roosevelt & Henry Cabot Lodge
Paperback, First Printing from Tolle Lege Press
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Hey, Mac!
by William F. McMurdie
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Hiding Place
by Corrie Ten Boom
35th Anniversary Edition from Chosen Books
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History of US Book 7
History of US Book 7
by Joy Hakim
3rd Revised Edition from Oxford University
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Hitler
by Albert Marrin
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Idelette
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In the Days of Queen Victoria
by Eva March Tappan
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
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Joan of Arc
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by William Deal
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John Calvin, Genius of Geneva
Reformation Trail Series #07
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John Knox: Stalwart Courage
by Douglas Wilson, foreword by George Grant
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John Paul Jones
Sterling Point Books
by Armstrong Sperry
from Sterling Publishing Co.
Biography for 5th-9th grade
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Jonathan and Sarah
by Edna Gerstner
from Soli Deo Gloria
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Jonathan Edwards
by Stephen J. Nichols
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Journey and Ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca
Dover editions
by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
from Dover Publications
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$10.95
Kit Carson's Autobiography
by Kit Carson
from University of Nebraska
Autobiography for 9th-12th grade
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Kitchen Boy
by Robert Alexander
Reprint from Penguin Press
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Kitty, My Rib
by E. Jane Mall
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Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography
by William Anderson
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$9.99
Lawrence of Arabia
Sterling Point Books
by Alistair Maclean
from Sterling Publishing Co.
Biography for 5th-9th grade
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Legacy of John Calvin
The Calvin 500 Series
by David W. Hall
from P&R Publishing
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Life & Legacy of Saint Patrick
by Michael McHugh
from Great Light Publications
Biography for 7th-10th grade
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Life and Death of Crazy Horse
by Russell Freedman
from Scholastic Inc.
for 7th-10th grade
1997 NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book
in Gilded Age (1865-1918) (Location: HISA-19GI)
Life of General Stonewall Jackson
by Mary Williamson
from Christian Liberty Press
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Life of George Washington
by Mary Williamson
from Christian Liberty Press
Biography for 7th-10th grade
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Life of J.E.B. Stuart
by Mary Williamson
2nd edition from Christian Liberty Press
Biography for 7th-10th grade
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Life of Sir Thomas More
by William Roper
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$5.99
Lincoln: A Photobiography
by Russell Freedman
from Houghton Mifflin
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1988 Newbery Medal winner
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Lives of Famous Romans
by Olivia Coolidge
from American Home-School Publishing
Roman History for 7th-12th grade
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Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
by Benson J. Lossing
3rd Printing from WallBuilder Press
Biography for 7th-10th grade
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$5.00 (2 in stock)
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