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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America At War: Korean War
by John Perritano
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America in the Time of Lewis and Clark
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American History: The Civil Rights Movement & Vietnam 1960-1976
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Ancient Egyptians
History Opens Windows
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Apollo 11 Moon Landing: July 20, 1969
24 Hour History
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Assassination of John F. Kennedy: November 22, 1963
24 Hour History
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Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: April 4, 1968
24 Hour History
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Bill of Rights
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Book of the Medieval Knight
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Byzantine Empire
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Cowboys on the Western Trail
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Culture of Athens
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D-Day: June 6, 1944
24 Hour History
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Declaration of Independence
Documenting U.S. History
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Discovering Mars
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DK Smithsonian Space!
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Draw the Titanic
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Early Settler Storybook
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Electrical Wizard
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Exploration of Space
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Explore Greek Myths!
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Eyes on Adventure
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Famous Figures of the Renaissance
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Creative Minds Biographies
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Dover Electronic Clip Art
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George Washington You Never Knew
by James Lincoln Collier
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Hannibal: A Wicked History
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Happy Birthday, Dr. King!
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Hieroglyphs
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I Wonder Why Greeks Built Temples
by Fiona Macdonald
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If You Grew Up With George Washington
If You Were There
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If You Were a Kid in a Medieval Castle
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Incans, Aztecs, Mayans
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How Kids Lived
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Learn About Pyramids
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Learn About Pyramids
by Peter Mellett
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by Joseph Farrell
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Marco Polo
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by Megan Noel
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Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Ancient Egypt
by Joanna Cole, Bruce Degen (Illustrator)
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Mummies & Pyramids
Usborne Internet-Linked
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by Peter Lourie
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N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims
by Robert D. San Souci
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Nathan Hale
Hidden History: Spies
by Aaron Derr, Illustrated by Tami Wicinas
from Red Chair Press
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Picture Book of Florence Nightingale
by David A. Adler, illustrated by John & Alexandra Wallner
Repackaged from Holiday House
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Primary Source History of the American Revolution
Fact Finders
by Sarah Powers Webb
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Reconstruction and the Aftermath of the Civil War
Understanding the Civil War
by Lisa Colozza Cocca
from Crabtree Publishing
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Remembering John McCrae
by Linda Granfield
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Riding on a Caravan
by Laurie Krebs, illustrated by Helen Cann
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Robert Fulton
by Marguerite Henry; illustrated by Robert Patterson
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Roman Life
by John Guy
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Ruby Bridges Goes to School
Scholastic Reader Level 2
by Ruby Bridges
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Secrets in Stone
by Laurie Coulter, illustrated by Sarah Jane English
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Smokestacks and Spinning Jennys
American History Through Primary Sources
by Sean Price
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Sophie Takes to the Sky
by Katherine Woodfine, illustrated by Briony May Smith
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Step Into Mesopotamia
by Lorna Oakes
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Step Into the Aztec & Maya Worlds
by Fiona Macdonald
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Step Into the Inca World
by Philip Steele
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Story of the Spirit of St. Louis
Cornerstones of Freedom
by R. Conrad Stein
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Story of the Thirteen Colonies
by Helene Guerber
from Nothing New Press
History Reference for 3rd-8th grade
Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks
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$16.50 (1 in stock)
Tank Man
by Michael Burgan
from Compass Point Books
for 3rd-6th grade
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Teddy Roosevelt: The People's President
Ready-to-Read Level 3
by Sharon Gayle, illustrated by Bob Dacey & Debra Bandelin
from Aladdin Paperbacks
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True Book: The Declaration of Independence
A True Book
by Elaine Landau
from Children's Press
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
True Stories of the Civil War
Graphic Library: Stories of War
by Nel Yomtov, illustrated by Carlo Molinari
from Capstone Press
for 3rd-5th grade
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
True Stories of the Revolutionary War
Graphic Library: Stories of War
by Elizabeth Raum, illustrated by Pat Kinsella
from Capstone Press
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
True Stories of World War I
Graphic Library: Stories of War
by Nel Yomtov, illustrated by Jon Proctor
from Capstone Press
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in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
True Stories of World War II
Graphic Library: Stories of War
by Terry Collins, illustrated by Pat Kinsella
from Capstone Press
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in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$4.50 (2 in stock)
Usborne Illustrated Guide to Greek Myths and Legends
by Rodney Matthews
from Usborne
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
War in Iraq
from Franklin Watts
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
What Was the Holocaust?
What Was?
by Gail Herman
1st edition from Grosset & Dunlap
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in Holocaust (Location: HISW-20WW2H)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?
by Jean Fritz
from PaperStar Books
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$3.50 (2 in stock)
When Washington Crossed the Delaware
by Lynne Cheney
from Simon & Schuster Macmillan
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Where the Poppies Now Grow
by Hilary Robinson, illustrated by Martin Impey
from Strauss House
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Who Was Galileo?
by Patricia Brennan Demuth, illustrated by John O'Brien
from Penguin Random House
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World of the Pharaoh
by Anne Millard, Illustrated by L. R. Galante
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Writing for Freedom
Creative Minds Biographies
by Erica Stux, illustrated by Mary O'Keefe Young
from Lerner Publishing Group
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You Are There! London 1666
by Dona Herweck Rice
from Teacher Created Materials, Inc.
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You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Colonist!
by Written by Peter Cook, Peter Hicks, Fiona Macdonald, and Jacqueline Morley, and Illustrated by David Antram
from Scholastic Press
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