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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1861: The Civil War Awakening
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Abe Lincoln Grows Up
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Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
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Adam and His Kin
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
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Aeschylus I: The Oresteia (old)
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Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
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Age of Religious Wars
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Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
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Alexander the Great
by Robert Green
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Biography for 4th-6th grade
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Almost Home
Daughters of the Faith
by Wendy G. Lawton
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Alone Yet Not Alone
by Tracy M. Leininger
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America in the Time of Abraham Lincoln
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America's Longest War
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American Passage
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American Revolution
America at War Series
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American Revolution for Kids
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American Revolutionaries
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American Waterways: Canal Days
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Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
by Gordon S. Wood
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Amistad Slave Revolt and American Abolition
by Karen Zeinert
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First Thus from Oxford University
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Ancient Civilizations
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Ancient Egypt Activity Book
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Ancient Egyptian Art
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Ancient Egyptians
People of the Ancient World
by Lila Perl
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Ancient Greece
by Robert Nicholson
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Ancient Greece Activity File
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Ancient Greece!
by Avery Hart & Paul Mantell
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Ancient Greek Art
Art in History
by Susie Hodge
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Ancient Greek Art
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Ancient Greek War and Weapons
by Haydn Middleton
from Heinemann Educational Books
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Ancient Maya
by Lila Perl
from Children's Press
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Ancient Roman Art
by Susie Hodge
2nd edition from Heinemann Educational Books
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Ancient Rome
Then and There Series
by N. Sherwin-White
1975 Printing from Longman
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Ancient Science
by Jim Wiese
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Andie's Moon
Historical House: 1969
by Linda Newbery
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Anne Bradstreet
by Heidi L. Nichols
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Biography for 10th-Adult
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Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary
by Ruud van der Rol & Rian Verhoeven
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Adventures of the American Revolution
by Susan Olasky
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Antarctica: Escape from Disaster
by Peter Lerangis
from Scholastic Reference
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Antebellum America: 1784-1850
American History by Era Volume 4
by William Dudley (book editor)
from Greenhaven Press
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Apprentice
by Pilar Molina Llorente
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Arabs in the Golden Age
by Mokhtar Moktefi & Veronique Ageorges
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Archaeologists Dig For Clues
Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science Stage 2
by Kate Duke
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Archaeology for Kids
by Richard Panchyk
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Archimedes and the Door of Science
by Jeanne Bendick
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Biography for 5th-8th grade
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Around the World in a Hundred Years
by Jean Fritz
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Atlas of North American Exploration
by Glyndwr Williams, William H. Goetzmann
Oklahoma Paperbacks Ed from University of Oklahoma Press
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Augustine
by P. de Zeeuw
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Aztecs
Journey Into Civilization
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Bamboo Sword
Companion to Heart of a Samurai
by Margi Preus
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Bandon by the Sea
by Dow Beckham
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Bat 6
by Virginia Euwer Wolff
from Scholastic Inc.
Historical Fiction for 4th-6th grade
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Battle Heroes: Voices from Afghanistan
by Allan Zullo
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Battle of the Little Bighorn
by Mark Henckel
1st edition from Falcon Press Publishing
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Beat to Quarters
Hornblower Series #6
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
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Beggars' Bible
by Louise Vernon
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Historical Fiction for 4th-8th grade
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Behind the Blue and Gray
by Delia Ray
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Behind the Blue and Gray
by Delia Ray
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Benazir Bhutto
by Englar, Mary
1st edition from Compass Point Books
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Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin
by Marguerite Henry & Wesley Dennis
Reprint from Aladdin Paperbacks
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Beowulf
by Anonymous (translation by Frederick Rebsamen)
from HarperCollins
Medieval Poetic Epic for 8th-Adult
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Beowulf
by Anonymous (translation by Seamus Heaney)
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Medieval Poetic Epic for 8th-Adult
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$15.95 $9.50 (2 in stock)
Betsy Ross and the Silver Thimble
Ready-To-Read Level 2
by Stephanie Greene, illustrated by Diana Magnuson
from Simon Spotlight
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$2.50 (1 in stock)
Between the Lines
by Tom and Delphine Frazier
from Regent Press
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$6.40 (1 in stock)
Beyond the Desert Gate
Bethlehem Books Young Adult Bookshelf
by Mary Ray
2nd edition from Bethlehem Books
Historical Fiction for
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Beyond the Sacred Page
Book of Books #2
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Big Annie of Calumet
by Jerry Stanley
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Bite of the Gold Bug
by Barthe DeClements
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$4.99 $2.50 (2 in stock)
Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge
by John S. D. Eisenhower
1st edition from Da Capo Press
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Black & Tan
by Doug Wilson
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Black Odyssey
by Mary Cable
from Penguin Classics
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Blackthorn Winter
Monroe Family Chronicles #1
by Doug Wilson
from Veritas Press
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Blackthorn Winter
Veritas Maritime Series #1
by Doug Wilson
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Nautical fiction for 4th-6th grade
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Bold Journey
by Charles Bohner
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Non-fiction for 5th-8th grade
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$4.00 (2 in stock)
Bomb
by Steve Sheinkin
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2013 Newbery Honor Book
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Bondage of the Will
by Martin Luther
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$8.50 (1 in stock)
Book About Christopher Columbus
by Ruth Belov Gross, Illustrated by Syd Hoff
from Scholastic Inc.
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in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Book of the Ancient Greeks - Student Guide
by Matthew Anderson
from Memoria Press
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in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$20.50 $12.00 (2 in stock)
Book of the Ancient Greeks - Teacher Guide
by Matthew Anderson
from Memoria Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$20.50 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Book of the Ancient Romans - Teacher Guide
by Dorothy Mills
from Memoria Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$20.50 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Book of the Ancient World - Teacher Guide
by Matthew Anderson
from Memoria Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$20.50 $12.00 (3 in stock)
Born to Run
by Christopher McDougall
from Vintage Books
for 9th-Adult
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Boston Jane
by Jennifer L. Holm
from Scholastic Reference
for 4th-7th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
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