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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1421: The Year China Discovered America
by Gavin Menzies
1st edition from William Morrow & Company
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1491
by Charles C. Mann
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1776
by David McCullough
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1861: The Civil War Awakening
by Adam Goodheart
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1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History
by Jay Winik
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500 Nations
by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
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Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
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Aeschylus I: The Oresteia (old)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from University of Chicago
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Aeschylus' Oresteia
Penguin Classics
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Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus, translated by Phillip Vellacott
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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Age of Fighting Sail
by C. S. Forester
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Age of Religious Wars
by Richard S. Dunn
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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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Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
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Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
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Alice
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All Shook Up
Pivotal Moments in American History
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America's Heroes
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America's Longest War
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American Barns and Covered Bridges
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American Children Through Their Books
by Sister Monica Kiefer
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American Dream
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American Heritage History of the American Revolution
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American Heritage History of the Indian Wars
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Time-Life: The American Story
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Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
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An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
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1955 Pulitzer Prize Winner
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Are We to Be a Nation?
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At the End of the Santa Fe Trail
by Sister Blandina Segale
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Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
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Autobiography of William Allen White
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B. Franklin, Printer
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Bad Faith
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Bandon by the Sea
by Dow Beckham
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Battle from the Start
by Brian Steel Wills
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Battle of Gettysburg
by Frank A. Haskell & William C. Oates
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Beat to Quarters
Hornblower Series #6
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Beatrix Potter's Journal (Abridged)
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Becoming Elisabeth Elliot
by Ellen Vaughn
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Beechcraft: Pursuit of Perfection
by Edward H. Phillips
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Beginning of the Republic
A Basic History of the United States Volume 2
by Clarence B. Carson
from American Textbook Committee
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Behind the Scenes
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Being American in Europe 1750-1860
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Beowulf
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Beowulf
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Better a Shield Than a Sword
by Edward Teller
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Between the Lines
by Tom and Delphine Frazier
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Beyond the Sacred Page
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Black & Tan
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Black Odyssey
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Blow Ye Winds Westerly
by Elizabeth Gemming
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Blue and the Gray
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Bondage of the Will
by Martin Luther
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Bondage of the Will
by Martin Luther, translated by Henry Cole
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Born to Run
by Christopher McDougall
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Brave Men
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Brethren During the Age of World War
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British are Coming
The Revolution Trilogy #1 of 3
by Rick Atkinson
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Bruchko
by Bruce Olson
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Buffalo Bill and the Wild West
by Henry Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright
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Burial at Thebes
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Burma Surgeon
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Butter in the Well: Historical Diary 1868-1888
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Calvin, Geneva & the Reformation
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Captain Cook R. N. the Resolute Mariner
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Captain Dreyfus
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Captured!
by Carolyn Paine Miller
1st edition from Christian Herald Books
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Castles and Fortresses
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Castles of the Western World
by Armin Tuulse
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Celts: Life, Myth, and Art
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Century
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Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
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Chickamauga
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Chief Joseph Country
by Bill Gulick
3rd Printing 1994 from Caxton Press
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Choices, Changes
by Joni Eareckson Tada
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Christianity and the Constitution
by John Eidsmoe
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Christina Alberta's Father
by H.G. Wells
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Christopher Columbus and His Legacy
Opposing Viewpoints Series
by Mary Ellen Jones, Editor
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Christopher Columbus: His Story and His Journals
Knowledge Keepers Home Library Series 1492
by Edward Everett Hale and Edward Gaylord Bourne
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$9.60 (1 in stock)
Churchill: Walking with Destiny
by Andrew Roberts
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Civil War Book of Facts
by Frank Burd
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Civil War Songbook
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War: 1850-1895
American History by Era Volume 5
by Auriana Ojeda, book editor
from Greenhaven Press
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$14.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War: A History
by Harry Hansen, Introduction by Richard S. Wheeler, Foreword by Gary Gallagher
from New American Library
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
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