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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18 Penny Goose
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by Sally M. Walker
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Aesop's Fables
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by Sydney Taylor; illustrated by Mary Stevens
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Aquila's Drinking Gourd
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Atarax the Wolf Tells: Greek Myths
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Balto and the Great Race
Totally True Adventures
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Ben and Me
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Book About Christopher Columbus
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Boy of Old Prague
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Step Into Reading Level 3
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2006 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award
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Clearing Weather
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1929 Newbery Honor Book
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Going West
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Greek Myths
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Hero Over Here
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from Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.
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Holling Clancy Holling's Stories from Many Lands
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Home in the Woods
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House on Walenska Street
by Charlotte Herman
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In Search of the Lost Colony
Outer Banks Animals Adventure Series
by Mary Maden
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In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
by Bette Bao Lord
from HarperCollins
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Johnny Appleseed
by Steven Kellogg
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by Cecile Alyce Nolan
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Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie
by Peter & Connie Roop
from Carolrhoda Books, Inc.
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Kirsten's Cook Book
American Girl
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Kitchen Knight
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Last Quest of Gilgamesh
by Ludmila Zeman
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Letter on the Tree
by Natalie Savage Carlson, illustrated by John Kaufmann
from Harper & Row
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Lindbergh
Classic Starts
by Torben Kuhlmann, Translated by David Henry Wilson
from NorthSouth
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Lion to Guard Us
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Long Way to a New Land
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by Joan Sandin
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Long Way to a New Land
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by Joan Sandin
from HarperCollins
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Long Way Westward
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by Joan Sandin
from HarperCollins
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Lotus Seed
by Sherry Garland
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Making of a Knight
by Patrick O'Brien
from Charlesbridge
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Matchlock Gun
by Walter Edmonds
from PaperStar Books
Historical Fiction for 2nd-4th grade
1942 Newbery Medal winner
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Medieval Feast
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Meet Samantha
American Girl
by Susan S. Adler
from American Girl
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Mieko and the Fifth Treasure
by Eleanor Coerr
from Puffin Books
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$5.99
Mighty Jackie
by Marissa Moss
1st edition from Simon & Schuster Macmillan
$11.00 $96.00 (1 in stock)
Minstrel in the Tower
by Gloria Skurzynski
from Random House
Historical Fiction for 1st-4th grade
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Miranda the Great
by Eleanor Estes
1-Simul from Sandpiper Books
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$7.95
Molly's Pilgrim
A Bantam First Skylark
by Barbara Cohen, illustrated by Daniel Mark Duffy
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More All-of-a-Kind Family
All-of-a-Kind Family Series #3
by Sydney Taylor
from Lizzie Skurnick Books
Family Stories for 2nd-6th grade
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$12.95
More All-of-a-Kind Family
All-of-a-Kind Family Series #3
by Sydney Taylor; illustrated by Mary Stevens
from Follett Publishing Co.
Family Stories for 2nd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$34.00 (1 in stock)
Mr. Revere and I
by Robert Lawson
from Little, Brown & Company
Humor/historical fiction for 2nd-5th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$7.99
My Book of Little House Paper Dolls
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperFestival
for 2nd-6th grade
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$12.99
My Brothers' Flying Machine
by Jane Yolen
from Little, Brown & Company
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Not Regina
by Christmas Carol Kauffman
Fourth Printing from Pathway Publishers
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Ol' Paul the Mighty Logger
by Glen Rounds
from Holiday House
for 2nd-4th grade
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$4.00 (2 in stock)
Paul Bunyan
by Steven Kellogg
from William Morrow & Company
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for
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$8.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
Pegasus
by Marianna Mayer & K. Y. Craft
1st ed from HarperCollins
for Preschool- 3rd Grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$17.99
Pegasus
by Marianna Mayer & K. Y. Craft
1st ed from Morrow Eagle
for Preschool- 3rd Grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Penny for a Hundred
by Ethel Pochocki
from Bethlehem Books
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in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$9.95
Persephone
by Sally Clayton, Illustrated by Virginia Lee
from Eerdmans
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in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$20.00
Persian Cinderella
by Shirley Climo & Robert Florczak
Reprint from HarperCollins
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$8.99
Pilgrim Adventures
by Margaret B. Pumphrey
from My Father's World
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$12.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Pilgrim Stories
by Margaret Pumphrey
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$11.95
Player King
by Avi
from Atheneum
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in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$7.99
Ranch of the Golden Flowers
by Constance Lindsay Skinner
from Bethlehem Books
for 2nd-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$15.95
Revenge of Ishtar
by Ludmila Zeman
from Tundra Books (NY)
for 1st-4th grade
$8.95 $6.00 (2 in stock)
Roman Diary
by Richard Platt
from Candlewick Press
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$7.99
Sailing the Unknown
by Michael Rosen, Illustrated by Maria Cristina Pritelli
from Creative Editions
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Saint George and the Dragon
by Margaret Hodges & Trina Schart Hyman
Fir from Little, Brown & Company
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 2nd-3rd grade
1985 Caldecott Medal winner
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$18.99
Sam the Minuteman
An I Can Read Book Level 3
by Nathaniel Benchley & Arnold Lobel
from HarperCollins
Historical Fiction for 2nd-4th grade
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$2.50 (1 in stock)
Samantha Learns a Lesson
American Girls
by Susan S. Adler
from American Girl
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Samuel's Choice
by Richard Berleth
from Scholastic Inc.
for Kindergarten-2nd grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Sarah, Plain and Tall
by Patricia MacLachlan
30th Anniversary from HarperCollins
Family Stories for 2nd-6th grade
1986 Newbery Medal winner
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$7.99 $3.50 (1 in stock)
Sir Bertie & the Wyvern
by Nicholas Wilde
from Carolrhoda Books, Inc.
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
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