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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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Norse Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
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Classic Adventures
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1937 Newbery Honor Book
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Commodore Hornblower
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Cornstalks and Cannonballs
by Barbara Mitchell
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Countdown
by Deborah Wiles
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Courage of Sarah Noble
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by Shannon Garst
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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
Dark Frigate
by Charles Boardman Hawes, illustrated by Warrenn Chappell
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Dark Moment
by Ann Bridge
Book Club Edition from Macmillan
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Darkness and the Dawn
by Thomas B. Costain
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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
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Eagle of the Ninth
by Rosemary Sutcliff, illustrated by C. Walter Hodges
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Historical Fiction for 6th-9th grade
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Earth is the Lord's
by Taylor Caldwell
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Everything Sad Is Untrue
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Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
by Jacqueline Kelly
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Far Frontier
by William O. Steele; illustrated by Paul Galdone
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Farmer Boy
Little House Series #3
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
from HarperCollins
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Favorite Greek Myths
by Mary Pope Osborne, illustrated by Troy Howell
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
First Four Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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First Four Years (Pictorial Cover)
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Flaming Arrows
by William O. Steele, Illustrated by Paul Galdone
1st edition from Harcourt
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Freewater
by Amina Luqman Dawson
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2023 Newbery Medal Winner
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Going to Town
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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Going West
by Jean Van Leeuwen, illustrated by Thomas Allen
from Dial Books for Young Readers
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Golden Age
by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish
from Ten Speed Press
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Good Queen Bess
by Diane Stanley & Peter Vennema
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Biography for 3rd-6th grade
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$18.99
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
3rd printing from Viking Press
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Gudrid's Saga
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Hannah Fowler
Kentucky trilogy #2
by Janice Holt Giles
Book Club Edition from Houghton Mifflin
for Adult
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
Helmet of Navarre
by Burke Wilkinson, illustrated by James W. Williamson
Second Printing from Macmillan
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Henry's Freedom Box
by Ellen Levine
from Scholastic Press
for Nursery-1st grade
2008 Caldecott Honor Book
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$17.99
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
by Rachel Field, illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop
1969 printing from Macmillan
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1930 Newbery Medal Winner
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Home in the Woods
by Eliza Wheeler
from Nancy Paulsen Books
for Preschool-2nd grade
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$18.99
Horses of Anger
by James Forman
2nd Printing from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
House Divided
by Ben Ames Williams, jacket & illustrations by Reginald Marsh
from Houghton Mifflin
for 10th-Adult
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$20.00 (1 in stock)
How I Became an American
by Karin Gundisch
from Cricket Books
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Impossible Escape
by Steve Sheinkin
from Roaring Brook Press
for 9th-Adult
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$19.99
Jack Wade, Fighter for Liberty
A Doubleday Signal Book
by Irving Werstein, illustrated by Albert Orbaan
from Doubleday & Company
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January's Sparrow
by Patricia Polacco
from Philomel Books
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$16.00 (1 in stock)
Johnny Tremain
by Esther Forbes, illustrated by Lynd Ward
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Journey to the River Sea
by Eva Ibbotson
First Edition from Dutton Juvenile
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$7.50 (1 in stock)
Justin Morgan Had a Horse
G&D Famous Horse Stories
by Marguerite Henry
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Justin Morgan Had a Horse
by Marguerite Henry, illustrated by Wesley Dennis
1958th edition from Rand McNally
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Kathleen: A Yankee Girl at Gettysburg
by Alice Turner Curtis
from Gramercy Books
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$5.50 (2 in stock)
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
Illustrated Junior Library Series 4
by Sir Thomas Malory, edited by Sidney Lanier and illustrated by Florian
from Grosset & Dunlap
British Fairy Tales/Prose Epic for 4th-8th grade
$12.50 (1 in stock)
Kings Mountain
by G. Clifton Wisler
1st edition from HarperCollins
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Lady of Arlington
by Harnett T. Kane
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Lafayette!
Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #8
by Nathan Hale
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$14.99
Last Days of Pompeii
by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Last Days of Pompeii
by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton
from Heritage Press
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
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
Legends of the Wild West
by James A. Crutchfield, Bill O'Neal, Dale L. Walker
from Publications International
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
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)
$42.00
Lewis and Clark and Me
by Laurie Myers
from Henry Holt and Company
Fictionalized Biography for 3rd-6th grade
in Lewis & Clark (Location: HISA-19L&C)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Liberty Letters: The Personal Correspondence of Hannah Brown and Sarah Smith
by Nancy LeSourd
1st edition from Zonderkidz
for 3rd-6th grade
in Series Books (Location: SER-MISC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Liberty Letters: The Story of Pocahontas, 1613
Liberty Letters
by Nancy LeSourd
1st edition from Zondervan
Historical Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
in Series Books (Location: SER-MISC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
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