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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5,000-Year-Old Puzzle
by Claudia Logan, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
1st edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Egypt (Location: HISW-ANEG)
$21.99
A is for Abigail
by Lynne Cheney
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for Kindergarten-4th grade
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Alamo All Stars
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by Nathan Hale
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Daring Rescues for 4th-7th grade
2021 Newbery Honor Book, 2021 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
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Amber and Clay
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American Plague
by Jim Murphy
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2004 Newbery Honor Book, 2004 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner, NCTE Orbi Pictus Award
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$17.59
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Scribner Illustrated Classics
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Armstrong
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Assyrian Empire's Three Attempts to Rule the World
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$33.99
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by Nathan Hale
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by Romola Anderson, R. C. Anderson
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2013 Newbery Honor Book, 2013 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner
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2021 Newbery Honor Book
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Built to Last
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1940 Newbery Honor Book
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1936 Newbery Medal winner
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Calvin and the Calvinists
by Paul Helm
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Biography for Adult
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$14.50
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2002 Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Award
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Cathedral
by David Macaulay
2nd edition from Houghton Mifflin
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$19.95
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by Angela Joy, illustrated by Janelle Washington
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2023 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
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Cold War Correspondent
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Cultural Atlas for Young People: Africa
by Jocelyn Murray
3rd edition from Facts On File
African History Reference/Atlas for 4th-8th grade
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$35.00
Cultural Atlas for Young People: Ancient Egypt
by Geraldine Harris
3rd edition from Facts On File
Ancient History for 4th-8th grade
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Cultural Atlas for Young People: Ancient Greece
by Anton Powell
3rd edition from Facts On File
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$35.00
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by Marion Wood
3rd edition from Facts On File
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Cultural Atlas for Young People: Ancient Rome
by Mike Corbishley
3rd edition from Facts On File
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$35.00
D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
from Doubleday Book For Young Readers
Greek Mythology for 4th-9th grade
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$29.99
D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
from New York Review of Books
Norse Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
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$29.95
Distant Mirror
by Barbara W. Tuchman
from Ballantine Books
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DK Eyewitness: Ancient China
DK Eyewitness Series
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from DK Publishing
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DK Eyewitness: Castle
DK Eyewitness Series
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$16.99
DK Eyewitness: Civil War
from DK Publishing
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$9.99
DK Eyewitness: Medieval Life
DK Eyewitness Series
by Andrew Langley
from DK Publishing
Midieval Ages History Reference for 4th-8th grade
in Middle Ages (Location: HISW-MID)
$16.99
DK Eyewitness: Viking
DK Eyewitness Series
by Susan M. Margeson
from DK Publishing
History Reference for 4th-8th grade
in Middle Ages (Location: HISW-MID)
$16.99
DK Eyewitness: World War I
DK Eyewitness Series
by Simon Adams
from DK Publishing
History Reference for 4th-8th grade
in World War I (1914-1919) (Location: HISA-20WW1)
$16.99
DK Eyewitness: World War II
by Simon Adams
from DK Publishing
for 4th-6th grade
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$9.99
Dorothy's Double
by G. A. Henty
from Robinson Curriculum
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$22.95
Down Cut Shin Creek
by Kathi Appelt & Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer
from Purple House Press
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in Great Depression (1929-1939) (Location: HISA-20GD)
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Dragonfly Eyes
by Cao Wenxuan, translated from the Chinese by Helen Wang
from Candlewick Press
Historical fiction for 5th-8th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$19.99
Eagle of the Ninth
by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by C. Walter Hodges
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Historical Fiction for 6th-9th grade
$20.00
Elizabeth Prentiss
by Sharon James
from Banner of Truth Trust
for 4th-7th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$26.00
European World 400-1450
by Barbara Hanawalt
from Oxford University
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$44.99 $27.50 (1 in stock)
Exploits of Xenophon
by Geoffrey Household
from Purple House Press
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Fallout
by Steve Sheinkin
from Roaring Brook Press
for 5th-9th grade
2022 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
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$19.99
Family Romanov
by Candace Fleming
from Anne Schwartz Books
for 7th-12th grade
2015 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
in Russia (Location: HISMC-RUS)
$19.99
Farmer Boy
Little House Series #3
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-6th grade
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$19.99
Fields of Fury
by James M. McPherson
from Atheneum
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Fight for Freedom
by Benson Bobrick
1st edition from Atheneum
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$24.99
Finding Winnie
by Lindsay Mattick
First Edition from Little, Brown & Company
for Nursery-2nd grade
2016 Caldecott Winner
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$19.99
First Four Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
Realistic Fiction/Pioneers for 3rd-8th grade
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$18.99
Flood of Noah
by Bodie Hodge, Laura Welch
from Master Books
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$15.99
Freewater
by Amina Luqman Dawson
from Little, Brown & Company
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2023 Newbery Medal Winner, Coretta Scott King Award
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$16.99
From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya
by Ruth Tucker
2nd edition from Zondervan
History of missions for 11th-Adult
in History of Missions (Location: XCH-MIS)
$32.99
Giant
by Judith McQuoid
from Little Island Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$17.99
Girl Who Drew Butterflies
by Joyce Sidman
from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
for 3rd-8th grade
2019 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$21.99
Give Me Liberty
Leaders in Action Series
by David Vaughan
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Leaders in Action (Location: BIO-LIA)
$17.95 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Good Queen Bess
by Diane Stanley & Peter Vennema
from HarperCollins
Biography for 3rd-6th grade
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Ground Zero
by Alan Gratz
from Scholastic Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$17.99
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
from Everyman's Library
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$23.00
Henry's Freedom Box
by Ellen Levine
from Scholastic Press
for Nursery-1st grade
2008 Caldecott Honor Book
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$18.99
Hiding Place - A Graphic Novel
by Corrie Ten Boom, adapted by Mario DeMatteo, illustrated by Ismael Castro
from Chosen Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$24.99
History of the Ancient World
by Susan Wise Bauer
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Ancient History Reference for Adult
in Story of the World (Location: HISCUR-SoW)
$35.00
History of the Medieval World
by Susan Wise Bauer
1st edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
for Adult
in Story of the World (Location: HISCUR-SoW)
$39.99
History of the Renaissance World
by Susan Wise Bauer
1st edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Story of the World (Location: HISCUR-SoW)
$35.00
Hitler Youth
by Susan Bartoletti
from Scholastic Press
for 7th-9th grade
2006 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
in World War II (1939-1945) (Location: HISA-20WW2)
$21.99
Home in the Woods
by Eliza Wheeler
from Nancy Paulsen Books
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$18.99 $9.50 (1 in stock)
How I Learned Geography
by Uri Shulevitz
1st edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 2nd-5th grade
Caldecott Honor Book
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$21.99
How Sweet the Sound
by Carole Boston Weatherford, Illustrated by Frank Morrison
from Atheneum
for 1st-4th grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$17.99
Impossible Escape
by Steve Sheinkin
from Roaring Brook Press
for 9th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$19.99
In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers
by Don Brown
from Clarion Books
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$19.99
Irenaeus of Lyons
Heroes of the Faith
by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson
from Banner of Truth Trust
for 3rd-6th grade
in Church History for Kids (Location: XCH-KID)
$14.00
James I
Sacred Fool Quartet Volume 1
by Otto Scott
from Chalcedon / Ross House Books
for 11th-Adult
in Clearance: Biographies (Location: ZCLE-BIO)
$14.00
John Calvin
Christian Biographies for Young Readers
by Simonetta Carr
1st edition from Reformation Heritage Books
for 2nd-6th grade
in Church History for Kids (Location: XCH-KID)
$18.00
John Knox
by Simonetta Carr
from Reformation Heritage Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Church History for Kids (Location: XCH-KID)
$18.00 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Jonathan Edwards
by Iain H. Murray
from Banner of Truth Trust
for 11th-Adult
in Clearance: Christian Books (Location: XCLE)
$23.10
Lafayette!
Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #8
by Nathan Hale
from Amulet Books
for 4th-8th grade
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$15.99
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Action/Adventure Novel for 9th-Adult
in Scribner Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SCRIB)
$24.99
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Pioneer Girl
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
from South Dakota State Historical Society Press
for 7th-Adult
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$39.99
Les Miserables
by Victor Hugo, translated by Charles Wilbour
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$48.00
Letters of Geerhardus Vos
by Geerhardus Vos, James T. Dennison, Jr.
from P&R Publishing
for Adult
in Clearance: Biographies (Location: ZCLE-BIO)
$18.00
Librarian Who Measured the Earth
by Kathryn Lasky
from Little, Brown & Company
Biography for 2nd-5th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.99 $12.00 (2 in stock)
Life of Andrew Jackson
by John S. Jenkins
from New Leaf Press
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$13.50
Life of John Calvin
by Theodore Beza
3rd edition from Back Home Industries
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$15.00
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