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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Abe Lincoln Grows Up
by Carl Sandburg
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Abraham Lincoln
Heroes of History
by Geoff & Janet Benge
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Abraham Lincoln
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
75th Anniversary Edition from Beautiful Feet Books
Picture Book Biography for 3rd-6th grade
1940 Caldecott Medal winner
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Abraham Lincoln's World
by Genevieve Foster, expanded by Joanna Foster
from Beautiful Feet Books
Historical Non-fiction for 7th-10th grade
1945 Newbery Honor Book
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Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
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Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
by Theodore Roosevelt
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Against the World
by Henry Coray
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Al Capone Does My Shirts
by Gennifer Choldenko
Reprint from Puffin Books
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2005 Newbery Honor Book
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Alexander Hamilton
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Alexander the Great
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Alexander the Great
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Alexander the Great
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Alfred the Great
by Asser
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Along Came Galileo
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Amazing Grace
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America's Paul Revere
by Esther Forbes
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Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
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And the Word Came With Power
by Joanne Shetler, Patricia Purvis
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Anne Bradstreet
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Anne Bradstreet
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Anne Frank's Story
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Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary
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Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary
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Archimedes and the Door of Science
by Jeanne Bendick
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Around the World in a Hundred Years
by Jean Fritz
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Artist of the Reformation
by Joyce McPherson
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Augustine
by P. de Zeeuw
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Augustine Came to Kent
Bethlehem Books Living History Library
by Barbara Willard
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Autobiography of George Muller
by George Muller
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Band of Brothers
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25th anniversary from Simon and Schuster
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Benazir Bhutto
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Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin
Heroes of History
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Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin
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Betty Before X
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Beyond the Myth
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Beyond the Sacred Page
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Bible Smuggler
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Sons of Liberty Series
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Black Heroes of the American Revolution
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Bonhoeffer
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Book About Christopher Columbus
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Born to Run
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Boy's War
by David Michell
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Boys in the Boat adapted for Young Readers
by Daniel James Brown, adapted by Gregory Mone
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Brendan Voyage
Modern Library Exploration
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Bridge to the Sun
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Bruchko
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Bruchko
by Bruce Olson
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Bruchko and the Motilone Miracle
by Bruce Olson
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Bud, Not Buddy
by Christopher Paul Curtis
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2000 Newbery Medal winner
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Buffalo Bill
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
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Buffalo Bill
by Helen Cody Wetmore
from University of Nebraska
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Buffalo Bill and the Wild West
by Henry Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright
Reprint from International Cody Family Assoc.
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Candy Bomber
by Michael O. Tunnell
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Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
by Jean Lee Latham
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1956 Newbery Medal winner
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Chance to Die
by Elisabeth Elliot
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Chasing Space for Young Readers
by Leland Melvin
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Children of the Storm
by Natasha Vins
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Autobiography for 8th-10th grade
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Christianity and the Constitution
by John Eidsmoe
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Christopher Columbus
Sowers Series
by Bennie Rhodes
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Churchill
by Paul Johnson
Reprint from Penguin Putnam
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Churchill: Walking with Destiny
by Andrew Roberts
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Clara Barton
Heroes of History
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Cleopatra
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Co. Aytch
by Sam Watkins
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Come On, Seabiscuit!
by Ralph Moody
from University of Nebraska
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Coronation of Glory
Reformation Trail Series #12
by Deborah Meroff
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Courage to Run
Daughters of the Faith
by Wendy G. Lawton
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D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
from Yearling
Greek Mythology for 4th-8th grade
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$19.99
D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths - Audio CD
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
from Yearling
Greek Mythology for 4th-8th grade
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Daniel Boone
by Daniel Boone
from Applewood Books
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Daniel Boone
Heroes of History
by Geoff & Janet Benge
from Emerald Books
Biography for 4th-7th grade
in Heroes of History (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99
Daniel Boone
by Carol Greene
from Children's Press
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David Livingstone
by C. Silvester Horne
from Christian Liberty Press
Biography for 7th-10th grade
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$11.75
Davy Crockett
by David Crockett
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Davy Crockett
Heroes of History
by Geoff & Janet Benge
from Emerald Books
Biography for 4th-7th grade
in Heroes of History (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99
Davy Crockett, Young Pioneer
by Laurence Santrey
from Troll Associates
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$2.00 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Napoleanic Foot Soldier
by Jakob Walter
from Penguin Putnam
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in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
from Anchor Books
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
Did It Take Creativity to Find Relativity, Albert Einstein?
by Gilda Berger, Melvin & Gilda Berger, Melvin Berger
from Scholastic Inc.
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Did You Invent The Phone All Alone, Alexander Graham Bell?
by Gilda Berger, Melvin Berger
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$4.99
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
by Geoff Benge, Janet Benge
from YWAM Publishing
Biography for 5th-8th grade
in Christian Heroes: Then and Now (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99
Discoverers
by Daniel J. Boorstin
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
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$22.00
Discovery of the Americas
by Betsy & Giulio Maestro
from HarperTrophy
for 3rd-6th grade
in Age of Exploration (1450-1700) (Location: HISA-16EXP)
$9.99
Douglas MacArthur
Heroes of History
by Geoff & Janet Benge
from Emerald Books
Biography for 4th-7th grade
in Heroes of History (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99
Douglas Macarthur: American Hero
Book Report Biographies
by Barbara Silberdick Feinberg
from Franklin Watts
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream Speech in Translation
by Leslie J. Holland
from Capstone Press
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$7.95
Duke Ellington
by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-6th grade
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$2.50 (1 in stock)
Duke Ellington
by Andrea Davis Pinkney
1st edition from Hyperion/Madison Press
for 3rd-6th grade
1999 Caldecott Honor Book
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$6.99
Elisabeth Elliot
by Geoff Benge, Janet Benge
from YWAM Publishing
Biography for 4th-6th grade
in Christian Heroes: Then and Now (Location: BIO-BENGE)
$11.99
Elizabeth I
by Jacob Abbott, updated for the present day reader by Knox Merkle
from Canon Press
for 6th-12th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$12.00
Encounter
by Jane Yolen
1st edition from Voyager Paperbacks
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in Age of Exploration (1450-1700) (Location: HISA-16EXP)
$8.99
Endurance
by Alfred Lansing
from Tyndale House
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in 20th Century Exploration (Location: HISW-20EXP)
$16.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Eric the Red & Leif the Lucky
by Barbara Schiller
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$4.50 (3 in stock)
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