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)
$16.00 $8.00 (1 in stock)
1776
by David McCullough
from Simon and Schuster
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$14.00 $8.00 (1 in stock)
1776
by David McCullough
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
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1861: The Civil War Awakening
by Adam Goodheart
from Vintage Books
for Adult
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
500 Nations
by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
1st edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
$28.00 (1 in stock)
Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
by G. Frederick Owen
from Tyndale House
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
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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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Admiral of the Ocean Sea
by Samuel E. Morison
from Atlantic Monthly Press
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Adventures of Buffalo Bill
by Col. William F. Cody
from Harper & Brothers
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Adventures of Captain Bonneville
by Washington Irving, illustrated by Robert Reynolds
Klickitat from Binford & Mort Publishing
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Adventures of Davy Crockett
by David Crockett, illustrated by John W. Thomason
from Charles Scribner's Sons
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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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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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Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus, translated by Phillip Vellacott
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
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Age of Fighting Sail
by C. S. Forester
1st edition from Doubleday & Company
American Naval History for 8th-Adult
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Age of Religious Wars
by Richard S. Dunn
2nd edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Age of Voltaire
Story of Civilization IX
by Will & Ariel Durant
from Simon and Schuster
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Air Forces of the World
by Sue Butterworth, editor
from Chartwell Books
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Album of Memories
by Tom Brokaw
from Random House
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Album of the Civil War
by William Loren Katz
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Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
from Penguin Random House
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Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
by David J. Lonsdale
from Carroll & Graf Publishers
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All Shook Up
Pivotal Moments in American History
by Glenn C. Altschuler
from Oxford University
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Amazing Mr. Doolittle
by Quentin Reynolds
from Appleton-Century-Crofts
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America 1933
by Michael Golay
from Free Press
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America in the Air War
by Edward Jablonski
from Time-Life Books
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America the Beautiful/ A Man of Destiny
by the editors of Country Beautiful Magazine
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America's Heroes
from SP, L.L.C.
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America's Longest War
by George C. Herring
2nd edition from McGraw-Hill
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
American Children Through Their Books
by Sister Monica Kiefer
1970 printing from University of Pennsylvania Press
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American Civil War
by Robert K. Krick
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American Dream
by Stephen K. McDowell & Mark Beliles
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American Heritage History of the American Revolution
by Bruce Lancaster
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American Heritage History of the Indian Wars
by Robert M. Utley, Wilcomb E. Washburn
Revised from American Heritage Publishing Co.
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American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham
from Random House
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American Passage
by Vincent J. Cannato
from Harper Perennial
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American Revolutionaries
by Milton Meltzer
from HarperCollins
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American Spirit
from LIFE Books
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American Story: The Revolutionaries
Time-Life: The American Story
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Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
by Gordon S. Wood
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by M. K. Gandhi
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Ancient City
by Hazel Dodge, Peter Connolly
First Thus from Oxford University
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Ancient Egypt
by David P. Silverman
from Oxford University
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Andersonville
by MacKinlay Kantor
from World Publishing Company
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1955 Pulitzer Prize Winner
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Annals
by Tacitus, translated with introduction & notes by A.J. Woodman
from Hackett Publishing Company
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Anne Bradstreet
by Heidi L. Nichols
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Biography for 10th-Adult
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Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works
Oxford World's Classics
by Anselm, edited and introduction by Brian Davies and Gillian Evans
from Oxford University
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$14.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Antigone
Dover Thrift Editions
by Sophocles, translated by Sir George Young
from Dover Publications
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
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Apollo on the Moon
by Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr.
from Dial Press
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Are We to Be a Nation?
by Richard B. Bernstein, with Kym S. Rice
from Harvard University Press
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Atlas of Mysterious Places
by Jennifer Westwood, editor
from Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Dover Thrift Editions
by Benjamin Franklin
from Dover Publications
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Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
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Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
from International Collectors Library
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B. Franklin, Printer
by David A. Adler
from Holiday House
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Bandon by the Sea
by Dow Beckham
from Arago Books
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Battle from the Start
by Brian Steel Wills
from HarperCollins
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Battle of Austerlitz
by Trevor Dupuy
from Macmillan
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Bayeux Tapestry
by Norman Denny & Josephine Filmer-Sankey
First Edition from Atheneum
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Beat to Quarters
Hornblower Series #6
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
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Beau Geste
by Percival Christopher Wren
from Reader's Digest
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Beechcraft: Pursuit of Perfection
by Edward H. Phillips
from Flying Books
for Adult
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Beyond Stateliest Marble
Leaders in Action Series
by Doug Wilson
from Cumberland House
Biography for
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Beyond the Sacred Page
Book of Books #2
by Jack Cavanaugh
from Zondervan
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Big Burn
by Timothy Egan
from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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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
from Canon Press
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$7.50 (1 in stock)
Black Odyssey
by Mary Cable
from Penguin Classics
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Black Rose
by Thomas B. Costain
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Blow Ye Winds Westerly
by Elizabeth Gemming
1st edition from Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
Blue and the Gray
by Thomas B. Allen, Photography by Sam Abell
from National Geographic
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Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
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Bondage of the Will
by Martin Luther
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Bondage of the Will
by Martin Luther, translated by Henry Cole
from Feather Trail Press
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Born to Run
by Christopher McDougall
from Vintage Books
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Brave Men
by Ernie Pyle
from Grosset & Dunlap
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Bret Harte: Stories of the Early West
by Bret Harte
from Platt and Munk Publishers
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Brethren During the Age of World War
from Brethren Press
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Bridge to the Sun
by Gwen Terasaki
from Rock Creek Books
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$15.99 $8.00 (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
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Bruchko
by Bruce Olson
Updated from Charisma House
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Bruchko and the Motilone Miracle
by Bruce Olson
from Charisma House
Biography for 10th-Adult
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Brunelleschi's Dome
from Penguin Books
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Buffalo Bill and the Wild West
by Henry Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright
Reprint from International Cody Family Assoc.
for Adult
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Burial at Thebes
by Sophocles, translated by Seamus Heaney
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
C. S. Lewis: A Life
by Alister McGrath
from Tyndale House
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$24.99 $18.00 (1 in stock)
Call of Duty
Leaders in Action Series
by Steve Wilkins
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
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$16.95 $10.00 (1 in stock)
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
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Captain Dreyfus
by Nicholas Halasz
from Grove Press, Inc.
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$1.00 (1 in stock)
Captured!
by Carolyn Paine Miller
1st edition from Christian Herald Books
for Adult
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Carolingian Chronicles
by Bernhard Walter Scholz (translator) with Barbara Rogers
2000 Printing from University of Michigan Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (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
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Celts: Life, Myth, and Art
by Juliette Wood
from Stewart, Tabori, & Chang
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Century
from Phaidon Press
for 9th-Adult
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$16.00 (1 in stock)
Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
by Leslie Alexander Lacy, illustrated by James Barkley
from Dial Press
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Chickamauga
by Horace Porter
from Konecky & Konecky
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
China Cry
by Nora Lam with Richard Schneider
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
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