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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Animals Robert Scott Saw
by Sandra Markle
from Chronicle Books
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in 20th Century Exploration (Location: HISW-20EXP)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Astronauts on the Moon - Hallmark Pop-Up Book
by Al Muenchen and Stanley Hendricks
from Hallmark Publications
for Kindergarten-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
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Bad River Boys
by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth
from Holiday House
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Benjamin in the Woods
Wonder Books Easy Reader
by Eleanor Clymer, illustrated by William Russell
from Wonder Books
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Boy Who Loved Math
by Deborah Heiligman, illustrated by LeUyen Pham
from Roaring Brook Press
for Preschool-2nd grade
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Breaking Into Print
by Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Bonnie Christensen
from Little, Brown & Company
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Calico Bush
by Rachel Field, illustrated by Allen Lewis
from Macmillan
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Cassie's Journey
by Brett Harvey; illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray
from Holiday House
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Chang's Paper Pony
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by Eleanor Coerr, illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray
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Christopher Columbus
by Elaine Murray Stone
500 Anv from Tyndale House
Biography for Preschool-3rd Grade
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by Taylor Morrison
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Emperor's Egg
by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Jane Chapman
from Candlewick Press
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Enemies of Slavery
from Holiday House
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First Step
by Susan E. Goodman, illustrated by E. B. Lewis
from Bloomsbury Publishing
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Flight
by Robert Burleigh; illustrated by Mike Wimmer
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1992 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award
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Golden Book of Space Exploration
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from Golden Books
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Great Adventure of Christopher Columbus
by Jean Fritz, illustrated by Tomie dePaola
from Putnam & Grosset Group
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Hatmaker's Sign: A Story by Benjamin Franklin
by Candace Fleming (reteller), illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker
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Home in the Woods
by Eliza Wheeler
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Hot Air
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2006 Caldecott Honor Book
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How To Be a Medieval Knight
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John, Paul, George & Ben
by Lane Smith
1st edition from Hyperion/Madison Press
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Joke's on George
by Michael O. Tunnell; illustrated by Kathy Osborn
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Kubla Khan: The Emperor of Everything
by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Robert Byrd
from Viking Press
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Last Princess
by Fay Stanley; illustrated by Diane Stanley
from HarperCollins
Picture Book Biographies for Kindergarten-3rd grade
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Lotus Seed
by Sherry Garland
from HMH Books for Young Readers
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Mama Went to Jail for the Vote
by Kathleen Karr, illustrated by Malene Laugesen
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Martin Luther King, Jr
by Carol Hilgartner Schlank, Barbara Metzger, illustrated by John Kastner
from Gryphon House
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Mighty Jackie
by Marissa Moss
1st edition from Simon & Schuster Macmillan
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Moses
by Carole Boston Weatherford
1st edition from Hyperion/Madison Press
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2007 Caldecott Honor Book
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
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Mousetronaut Goes to Mars
by Mark Kelly, illustrated by C. F. Payne
from Simon and Schuster
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My Brothers' Flying Machine
by Jane Yolen
from Little, Brown & Company
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N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims
by Robert D. San Souci
from Chronicle Books
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Not Regina
by Christmas Carol Kauffman
Fourth Printing from Pathway Publishers
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Peter the Great
by Diane Stanley
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Picture Book of George Washington
by David A. Adler
1st edition from Holiday House
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Pocahontas: A Little Indian Girl of Jamestown
Tip Top Elf Books
by Frances Cavanah, illustrated by Manning de V. Lee
from Rand McNally
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Rare Treasure
by Don Brown
from Houghton Mifflin
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River Boy: The Story of Mark Twain
by William Anderson, illustrated by Dan Andreasen
from HarperCollins
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Sailing the Unknown
by Michael Rosen, Illustrated by Maria Cristina Pritelli
from Creative Editions
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Shine-A-Light
by Carron Brown and Illustrated by Bee Johnson
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Song to Demeter
by Cynthia & William Birrer
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Story of Old Ironsides
by Norman Richards
from Children's Press
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Story of the Flight at Kitty Hawk
by Len W. Meents, R. Conrad Stein
from Children's Press
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Story of the Mayflower Compact
from Children's Press
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Tali's Jerusalem Scrapbook
by Sylvia Rouss, illustrated by Nancy Oppenheimer
from Pitspopany Press
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Temple Cat
by Andrew Clements
from HMH Books for Young Readers
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Thomas Jefferson
by James Cross Giblin
from Scholastic Inc.
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Trail Through Danger
by William O. Steele, illustrated by Charles Beck
from Harcourt, Brace & World
for Kindergarten-5th grade
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Tutankhamun
by Demi
from Marshall Cavendish Education
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Unfading Beauty
by Tracy M. Leininger
from His Seasons
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Usborne Big Book of Rockets and Spacecraft
from Usborne
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Space Race & Exploration (Location: HISA-20SPR)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Viola Desmond Won't Be Budged!
by Jody Nyasha Warner, Richard Rudnicki
from Groundwood Books
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) (Location: HISA-20CIV)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
When Washington Crossed the Delaware
by Lynne Cheney
from Simon & Schuster Macmillan
for Preschool-3rd grade
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Why Cowboys Sing, In Texas
by LeGrand Henderson
from Abingdon Press
for Preschool-2nd grade
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Wright Brothers: Pioneers in Aviation - A Birthday Book
by Gladys Huden Gebert, illustrated by Bill Smith
from Gibson Greeting Cards
A Birthday Book for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Yankee Doodle
by Gary Chalk
from DK Publishing
for Preschool-3rd grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)