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.

Did you find this review helpful?
545 Items found Print
Active Filters: Adult, Hardcover
1776
by David McCullough
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
500 Nations
by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
1st edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
$28.00 (1 in stock)
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
by Chester G. Hearn
from US Naval Institute Press
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Admiral of the Ocean Sea
by Samuel E. Morison
from Atlantic Monthly Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Buffalo Bill
by Col. William F. Cody
from Harper & Brothers
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Captain Bonneville
by Washington Irving, illustrated by Robert Reynolds
Klickitat from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Age of Enlightenment
Great Ages of Man
by Peter Gay
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Great Ages of Man (Location: ADU-HISGAM)
Age of Exploration
Great Ages of Man
by John R. Hale
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Great Ages of Man (Location: ADU-HISGAM)
Age of Kings
Great Ages of Man
by Charles Blitzer
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Great Ages of Man (Location: ADU-HISGAM)
Age of Voltaire
Story of Civilization IX
by Will & Ariel Durant
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Air Forces of the World
by Sue Butterworth, editor
from Chartwell Books
for 9th-Adult
in Aviation History (Location: HISV-AVIA)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Rand McNally
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Album of Memories
by Tom Brokaw
from Random House
for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Album of the Civil War
by William Loren Katz
from Franklin Watts
for 7th-Adult
in American Civil War (1860-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
by David J. Lonsdale
from Carroll & Graf Publishers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (2 in stock)
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
Book Club (BCE/BOMC) from Ballantine Books
War/Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
All Shook Up
Pivotal Moments in American History
by Glenn C. Altschuler
from Oxford University
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Amazing Mr. Doolittle
by Quentin Reynolds
from Appleton-Century-Crofts
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
America 1933
by Michael Golay
from Free Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
America in the Air War
by Edward Jablonski
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Aviation History (Location: HISV-AVIA)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
America the Beautiful/ A Man of Destiny
by the editors of Country Beautiful Magazine
from Country Beautiful
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
America's Heroes
from SP, L.L.C.
for 6th-Adult
in War on Terror (Location: HISA-21WT)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
American Caesar
by William Manchester
from Little, Brown & Company
for 10th grade-adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
American Children Through Their Books
by Sister Monica Kiefer
1970 printing from University of Pennsylvania Press
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
American Fairy Tales
1st edition from Hyperion Books for Children
for 3rd-Adult
American Heritage History of the American Revolution
by Bruce Lancaster
from American Heritage Publishing Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
American Heritage History of the Indian Wars
by Robert M. Utley, Wilcomb E. Washburn
Revised from American Heritage Publishing Co.
for 6th-Adult
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham
from Random House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Spirit
from LIFE Books
for 9th-Adult
in War on Terror (Location: HISA-21WT)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Story: The Revolutionaries
Time-Life: The American Story
from Time-Life Books
for Adult
in American Revolution (1765-1783) (Location: HISA-18REV)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
American Ulysses
by Ronald C. White
from Random House
for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by M. K. Gandhi
from Navajivan Publishing House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient America
Great Ages of Man
by Jonathan Norton Leonard
from Time-Life Books
for 9th-Adult
in Great Ages of Man (Location: ADU-HISGAM)
Andersonville
by MacKinlay Kantor
from World Publishing Company
for 9th-Adult
1955 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Annotated Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
from Paul S. Eriksson, INC.
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Apollo on the Moon
by Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr.
from Dial Press
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Apostle of Liberty
by Stephen McDowell
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Leaders in Action (Location: BIO-LIA)
Arabian Nights
Scribner Illustrated Classics
by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, editors, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Eastern Fairy Tales for 9th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
Arabian Nights
International Collectors Library
by Sir Richard Burton, illustrated by Steele Savage
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
Arabian Nights
Scribner Illustrated Classics
by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, editors, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Eastern Fairy Tales for 9th-Adult
in Scribner Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SCRIB)
$29.99
Arabian Nights
by Amabel Williams-Ellis, illustrated by Pauline Baynes
from Blackie & Son LTD.
for 9th-Adult
Arabian Nights
by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, editors, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish
from Book-of-the-Month Club
Eastern Fairy Tales for 9th-Adult
Army of the Potomac - 3 Volumes
by Bruce Catton
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Assassins
by Bernard Lewis
from The Folio Society
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Atlas of Mysterious Places
by Jennifer Westwood, editor
from Weidenfeld & Nicolson
for Adult
in International Landmarks & Symbols (Location: HISV-LANINT)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$11.50 (1 in stock)
B. Franklin, Printer
by David A. Adler
from Holiday House
for 6th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Battle for the Falklands
by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Battle from the Start
by Brian Steel Wills
from HarperCollins
for 9th grade-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Battle of Austerlitz
by Trevor Dupuy
from Macmillan
for 9th-Adult
in France (Location: HISMC-FRA)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Bayeux Tapestry
by Norman Denny & Josephine Filmer-Sankey
First Edition from Atheneum
for 7th-Adult
in Middle Ages (Location: HISW-MID)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Beau Geste
by Percival Christopher Wren
from Reader's Digest
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Beechcraft: Pursuit of Perfection
by Edward H. Phillips
from Flying Books
for Adult
in Aviation History (Location: HISV-AVIA)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Bell for Adano
by John Hersey
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 11th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Ben Snipes, Northwest Cattle King
by Roscoe Sheller
Third Edition from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 7th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Ben-Hur
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Lew Wallace
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Ben-Hur
by Lew Wallace
from Harper & Brothers
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Beyond Stateliest Marble
Leaders in Action Series
by Doug Wilson
from Cumberland House
Biography for
in Leaders in Action (Location: BIO-LIA)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Big Burn
by Timothy Egan
from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Black Rose
by Thomas B. Costain
from Doubleday & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Blow Ye Winds Westerly
by Elizabeth Gemming
1st edition from Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Blue and the Gray
by Thomas B. Allen, Photography by Sam Abell
from National Geographic
for Adult
in American Civil War (1860-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Book of Marvels: Marvels of the Occident
from Living Book Press
for 3rd-Adult
in International Landmarks & Symbols (Location: HISV-LANINT)
$27.99
Boys in the Boat
by Daniel James Brown
from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Brave Men
by Ernie Pyle
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Brave Men
by Ernie Pyle
7th printing, 1945 from Henry Holt and Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Bret Harte: Stories of the Early West
by Bret Harte
from Platt and Munk Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Brethren During the Age of World War
from Brethren Press
for Adult
in Church History (Location: XCH-HIS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
British and European Combat Aircraft
Combat Aircraft Library
by Paul A. Jackson
from Crescent Books
for Adult
in Aviation History (Location: HISV-AVIA)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
British are Coming
The Revolution Trilogy #1 of 3
by Rick Atkinson
from Henry Holt and Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Buffalo Bill's Life Story
by William F. Cody, Illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
1966 printing from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Buffalo Coat
by Carol Ryrie Brink
for 9th-Adult
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Bully Pulpit
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
C. S. Lewis: A Life
by Alister McGrath
from Tyndale House
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$24.99 $18.00 (1 in stock)
Caesar and Christ
Story of Civilization III
by Will Durant
from Simon and Schuster
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Call of Duty
Leaders in Action Series
by Steve Wilkins
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Leaders in Action (Location: BIO-LIA)
$16.95 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Calvin and the Calvinists
by Paul Helm
from Banner of Truth Trust
Biography for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$14.50
Captain Cook
by Alistair MacLean
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Captain Cook R. N. the Resolute Mariner
by Thomas Vaughan and A. A. St. C. M. Murray-Oliver
from Oregon Historical Society Press
Museum Exhibition Catalog for Adult
in Age of Exploration (1450-1700) (Location: HISA-16EXP)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Captured!
by Carolyn Paine Miller
1st edition from Christian Herald Books
for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Carry a Big Stick
Leaders in Action Series
by George Grant
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Leaders in Action (Location: BIO-LIA)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Castles and Fortresses
by Robin S. Oggins
from MetroBooks
for 5th-Adult
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Celts: Life, Myth, and Art
by Juliette Wood
from Stewart, Tabori, & Chang
for 8th-Adult
in Middle Ages (Location: HISW-MID)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Centennial History of the Civil War - 3 Volumes
by Bruce Catton
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in American Civil War (1860-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
Century
from Phaidon Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th Century (Location: HISW-20)
$16.00 (1 in stock)
Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
by Leslie Alexander Lacy, illustrated by James Barkley
from Dial Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Chickamauga
by Horace Porter
from Konecky & Konecky
for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Chief Joseph Country
by Bill Gulick
from Caxton Press
for 8th-Adult
in Native Americans (Location: HISA-19NAT)
Churchill and Empire
by Lawrence James
from Pegasus Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Civil War: 1861-1865
by David E. Roth
from Zigzag
for 9th-Adult
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Classic Adventures
by Sir H. Rider Haggard
from New Orchard Editions
for 8th-Adult
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Cloister and the Hearth
by Charles Reade, illustrated by Lynd Ward
from Heritage Press
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
123456