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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1066: The Year of the Conquest
by David Howarth
from Penguin Putnam
for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$13.60
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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20 Exciting Plays for Medieval History Classes
by Dean Bowman
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A Weed Is a Flower
by Aliki
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Abe Lincoln Grows Up
by Carl Sandburg
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Abraham Lincoln
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
75th Anniversary Edition from Beautiful Feet Books
Picture Book Biography for 3rd-6th grade
1940 Caldecott Medal winner
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$15.26
Abraham Lincoln's World
by Genevieve Foster, expanded by Joanna Foster
from Beautiful Feet Books
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1945 Newbery Honor Book
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$19.95
Abraham Lincoln's World
by Genevieve Foster
from Beautiful Feet Books
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Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
by G. Frederick Owen
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Accidental Voyage
Mr. Pipes Series #4
by Doug Bond
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$13.59
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by Jim Murphy and Robert Louis Stevenson
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1994 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award
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$9.31
Adam and His Kin
by Ruth Beechick
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
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Adventures of Lewis and Clark
by John Bakeless
from Dover Publications
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Adventures of Munford: The American Revolution
by Jamie Aramini
1st edition from Geography Matters
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Adventures of the American Revolution
by Susan Olasky
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Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
by Theodore Roosevelt
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Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
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Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 10th-Adult
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$14.45
Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles
from Penguin Putnam
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in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$17.00
Aeschylus I: The Oresteia (old)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Aeschylus II: The Oresteia
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
3rd edition from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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$11.90
Aeschylus' Oresteia
Penguin Classics
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Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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Aeschylus' Oresteia
by Aeschylus, translated by Peter Meineck
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Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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$14.00
Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus, translated by Phillip Vellacott
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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$11.05 $5.60 (1 in stock)
Against the Tide
by Hope Irvin Marston
from P&R Publishing
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$16.99
Against the World
by Henry Coray
from Inheritance Publications
Biography for 5th-8th grade
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$8.46 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Age of Religious Wars
by Richard S. Dunn
2nd edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
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$4.80 (1 in stock)
Ahoy There, Little Polar Bear
by Hans de Beer
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AIO Imagination Station Book #01
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$5.09
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by Marianne Hering, Wayne Thomas Batson
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$6.79
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by Marianne Hering, Nancy I. Sanders
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$6.79
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$6.79
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$6.79
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$5.09
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by Marianne Hering, Paul McCusker
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AIO Imagination Station Book #19
by Marianne Hering
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$5.09
AIO Imagination Station Book #20
by Marianne Hering
from Focus on the Family
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$5.09
AIO Imagination Station Book #21
by Marianne Hering
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$5.09
AIO Imagination Station Book #22
by Marianne Hering & Sheila Seifert
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$5.09
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by Marianne Hering & Sheila Seifert
from Focus on the Family
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by Marianne Hering & Sheila Seifert
from Focus on the Family
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$5.09
AIO Imagination Station Book #27
by Marianne Hering & Sheila Seifert
from Focus on the Family
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$6.79
Al Capone Does My Shirts
by Gennifer Choldenko
Reprint from Puffin Books
for 7th-10th grade
2005 Newbery Honor Book
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$8.49 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
from Penguin Random House
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Alexander the Great
by Jacob Abbott
from Canon Press
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$10.20 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Alexander the Great
by Andrew Langley
Reissue from Oxford University
for Preschool-3rd grade
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$5.94
Alfred the Great
by Asser
from Penguin Classics
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$15.30
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown
All-of-a-Kind Family Series #2
by Sydney Taylor, illustrated by Beth & Joe Krush
from Lizzie Skurnick Books
Family Stories for 2nd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$11.01
All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown
All-of-a-Kind Family Series #4
by Sydney Taylor, illustrated by Mary Stevens
from Lizzie Skurnick Books
Family Stories for 2nd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$11.86
Almost Home
Daughters of the Faith
by Wendy G. Lawton
from Moody Press
Historical Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
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$7.64 $4.00 (3 in stock)
Alone Yet Not Alone
by Tracy M. Leininger
Mti from Zonderkidz
Historical Fiction for 6th-10th grade
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$5.60 (1 in stock)
Along Came Galileo
by Jeanne Bendick
from Beautiful Feet Books
Biography for 4th-8th grade
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$11.86
Amazing Grace
by Eric Metaxas
from HarperOne
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$13.59
Amazing Impossible Erie Canal
by Cheryl Harness
from Aladdin Paperbacks
Historical Non-Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
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$6.79
America and Vietnam
by Albert Marrin
from Beautiful Feet Books
Historical Non-Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in Vietnam War (1957-1975) (Location: HISA-20VIE)
$11.95
America in the Time of Abraham Lincoln
by Sally Senzell Isaacs
from Heinemann Library
for 1st-4th grade
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$3.20 (1 in stock)
America's Longest War
by George C. Herring
2nd edition from McGraw-Hill
for 11th-Adult
in Clearance: History & Geography (Location: ZCLE-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
America's Paul Revere
by Esther Forbes
from Sandpiper Books
Biography for 2nd-6th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$11.04
America: From Gridlock to Deadlock
A Basic History of the United States Volume 6
by Clarence B. Carson
from American Textbook Committee
American History Reference for 9th-Adult
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$19.00
American Civil War
by Robert K. Krick
from Osprey Publishing
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American Civil War
by John Keegan
from Vintage Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$16.11
American Milestones: World War I
by Carole Marsh
from Gallopade International
for 3rd-6th grade
in World War I (1914-1919) (Location: HISA-20WW1)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
American Passage
by Vincent J. Cannato
from Harper Perennial
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
American Revolution
America at War Series
by Alden Carter
from Grolier Publishing
Historical Non-fiction for 4th-6th grade
in American Revolution (1765-1783) (Location: HISA-18REV)
$5.91 $4.00 (1 in stock)
American Revolution for Kids
by Janis Herbert
1st edition from Chicago Review Press
for 2nd-6th grade
in American Revolution (1765-1783) (Location: HISA-18REV)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
American Revolutionaries
by Milton Meltzer
from HarperCollins
in American Revolution (1765-1783) (Location: HISA-18REV)
$2.40 (1 in stock)
American Waterways: Canal Days
by Jeanne Munn Bracken, ed.
from History Compass
for 7th-12th grade
in 19th Century America (Location: HISA-19C)
$4.40 (1 in stock)
Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
by Gordon S. Wood
from Penguin Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Amistad Slave Revolt and American Abolition
by Karen Zeinert
from Linnet Books
for 7th-10th grade
in Slavery & the Underground Railroad (Location: HISA-19SL)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Celts
by Patricia Calvert
from Scholastic Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Middle Ages (Location: HISW-MID)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient City
by Hazel Dodge, Peter Connolly
First Thus from Oxford University
for 8th-Adult
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$14.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient Civilizations: China
Ancient Civilizations
by Valerie Bodden
Reprint from Creative Paperbooks
for 3rd-6th grade
in China (Location: HISMC-CHI)
$5.20 (1 in stock)
Ancient Egypt Activity Book
by Robyn Hamilton
from Edupress
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Egypt (Location: HISW-ANEG)
$3.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient Egyptian Art
by Susie Hodge
First Printing
for 4th-6th grade
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$3.60 (1 in stock)
Ancient Egyptians
People of the Ancient World
by Lila Perl
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-7th grade
in Ancient Egypt (Location: HISW-ANEG)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece
by Robert Nicholson
from Chelsea House Publishing
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.50 (2 in stock)
Ancient Greece Activity File
by DK Publishing
Book and Access from DK Publishing
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece!
by Avery Hart & Paul Mantell
from Williamson Publishing Company
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient Greek Art
Art in History
by Susie Hodge
from Heinemann Educational Books
for 4th-6th grade
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$6.79 $3.60 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greek Art
from Heinemann-Raintree
for 4th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greek War and Weapons
by Haydn Middleton
from Heinemann Educational Books
for 4th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greeks
by Allison Lassieur
from Children's Press
for 4th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Maya
by Lila Perl
from Children's Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient America (Location: HISW-ANAM)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Roman Art
by Susie Hodge
2nd edition from Heinemann Educational Books
in Ancient Rome (Location: HISW-ANRO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Rome
Then and There Series
by N. Sherwin-White
1975 Printing from Longman
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Ancient Science
by Jim Wiese
from Jossey-Bass
for 4th-6th grade
in History of Science & Mathematics (Location: SCI-HIS)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
And There Was Light
by Jacques Lusseyran
Third Edition from New World Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.95
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