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Modern History

There isn't more history in the last five centuries than all the previous millennia, we just have more plentiful records of it. In all honesty, sometimes the plethora of detail isn't only overwhelming, it obscures the whole point of the story. As humans, we're all too susceptible to the lure of obscurity, to the desire for darkness where there ought to be light.

In many ways, this is the chief characteristic of modern history. Mankind seems to have accepted Enlightenment ideals en masse, and the result is the non-stop acquisition of knowledge, as though information could shut us off from the eye of a just and jealous God. Evolutionary theory, psychology, existentialism and postmodernism, public education, Communism—all these ideas are intended to put man at a further remove from God.

During the Renaissance, thinkers and artists decided that if man was going to make himself great, he'd have to replicate the glory of the Classical Era, with its enduring artifacts and intellectual produce. Enlightenment thinkers took this one step further, insisting that man could only know what he could deduce using reason alone, and consequently amassing knowledge in order to have a more thorough basis for such reasonable inquiry.

Since then, philosophers and scientists have devoted themselves to interpreting the facts from a purely human perspective, creating a picture of the universe that is mechanistic and godless. Meaning is dead, God is dead, and hope is dead, but the Enlightenment ideal of human progress (repackaged as Darwinian naturalism) is alive and well, the phantom idol of countless millions.

Even a brief survey of the last century would seem to demolish the possibility of any such idea, but it continues to inform nearly every element of our culture, from pop music to public policy debates. Atrocities like the Holocaust, racism in America, abortion, and totalitarian rule in Asian countries are reinterpreted or explained away to fit the overarching rubrik of sustained forward progress.

Christians understand things a bit differently. We aren't pessimists by any means, but we aren't blind optimists, either. God's plan entails one thing: His ultimate glory, and for those who believe His promises and trust Him for salvation, that's the most hopeful doctrine conceivable. At the same time, we also understand that man's efforts cannot be responsible for whatever good befalls us, that "progress" is only a gift of the Most High, and that only through the Holy Spirit is evil overcome by good.

The modern world is increasingly secular. Even in the Church, men and women stray from biblical truth in favor of appealing arguments on behalf of man, substituting a Christ-centered Gospel with one that is primarily focused on mankind and our individual salvation. We must counter these attitudes with God's truth, but we can only do so with an understanding of where those ideas come from and why they've taken root. A thorough study of modern history can and will provide those answers, and teach us how to stand firm in the truth we hold dear.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and 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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11 Days in December
by Stanley Weintraub
from New American Library
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
1776
by David McCullough
from Simon and Schuster
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
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1776
by David McCullough
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
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1861: The Civil War Awakening
by Adam Goodheart
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Abraham Lincoln: Great Speeches
Dover Thrift Editions
by Abraham Lincoln & John Grafton, editor
from Dover Publications
Political Philosophy for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$2.00
Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
by G. Frederick Owen
from Tyndale House
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Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
by Chester G. Hearn
from US Naval Institute Press
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
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from Little, Brown & Company
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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
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by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
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$14.00 (1 in stock)
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
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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
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
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Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
by Theodore Roosevelt
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$16.00
Agatha Christie: An Autobiography
by Agatha Christie
2012 Reissue from William Morrow & Company
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Age of Enlightenment
Great Ages of Man
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Age of Exploration
Great Ages of Man
by John R. Hale
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Age of Fighting Sail
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from Chapman Billies, Inc
American Naval History for 8th-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 Kings
Great Ages of Man
by Charles Blitzer
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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
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Ain't Burned All the Bright
by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jason Griffin
from Atheneum
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2023 Caldecott Honor Book
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$19.99
Air Forces of the World
by Sue Butterworth, editor
from Chartwell Books
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$18.00 (1 in stock)
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from International Collectors Library
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Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Rand McNally
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Album of Memories
by Tom Brokaw
from Random House
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
Album of the Civil War
by William Loren Katz
from Franklin Watts
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$4.50 (1 in stock)
Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
from Penguin Random House
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$10.00 (2 in stock)
All He Knew
by Helen Frost
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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$17.99
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
from Ballantine Books
War/Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
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$8.99
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
Book Club (BCE/BOMC) from Ballantine Books
War/Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
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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 Grace
by Eric Metaxas
from HarperOne
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$15.99
Amazing Mr. Doolittle
by Quentin Reynolds
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
America 1933
by Michael Golay
from Free Press
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
America in the Air War
by Edward Jablonski
from Time-Life Books
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
America the Beautiful/ A Man of Destiny
by the editors of Country Beautiful Magazine
from Country Beautiful
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
America's Heroes
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
America's Longest War
by George C. Herring
2nd edition from McGraw-Hill
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America's National Battlefield Parks
by Joseph E. Stevens
from University of Oklahoma Press
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America: From Gridlock to Deadlock
A Basic History of the United States Volume 6
by Clarence B. Carson
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American History Reference for 9th-Adult
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$19.00
American Caesar
by William Manchester
from Little, Brown & Company
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American Children Through Their Books
by Sister Monica Kiefer
1970 printing from University of Pennsylvania Press
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$9.00 (1 in stock)
American Civil War
by Robert K. Krick
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American Civil War
by John Keegan
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$18.95
American Dream
by Stephen K. McDowell & Mark Beliles
from Providence Foundation
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Fairy Tales
1st edition from Hyperion Books for Children
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American Heritage History of the American Revolution
by Bruce Lancaster
from American Heritage Publishing Co.
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$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.
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Passage
by Vincent J. Cannato
from Harper Perennial
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Revolutionaries
by Milton Meltzer
from HarperCollins
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
American Spirit
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American Story: The Revolutionaries
Time-Life: The American Story
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
American Ulysses
by Ronald C. White
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Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
by Gordon S. Wood
from Penguin Books
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
Amistad
by Helen Kromer
from The Pilgrim Press
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An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by M. K. Gandhi
from Navajivan Publishing House
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
And There Was Light
by Jacques Lusseyran
Third Edition from New World Library
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$18.95
Andersonville
by MacKinlay Kantor
from World Publishing Company
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1955 Pulitzer Prize Winner
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Anne Bradstreet
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Biography for 10th-Adult
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Anne Bradstreet
Christian Renegades Series
by Doug Wilson
3rd edition from Canon Press
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$16.95
Anne Bradstreet
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from Evangelical Press
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Annotated Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from W. W. Norton and Co.
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Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant
from W. W. Norton and Co.
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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.
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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)
Apostle of Liberty
by Stephen McDowell
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
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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)
Arguing about Slavery
by William Lee Miller
from Vintage Books
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$17.95
Army of the Potomac - 3 Volumes
by Bruce Catton
from Doubleday & Company
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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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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
from International Collectors Library
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$11.50 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of George Muller
by George Muller
from Whitaker House
Biography for 11th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$9.99
Autobiography of Josiah Henson
by Josiah Henson
from Dover Publications
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B. Franklin, Printer
by David A. Adler
from Holiday House
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$8.00 (2 in stock)
Band of Brothers
by Stephen Ambrose, Foreword by Tom Hanks
25th anniversary from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$18.99
Bandon by the Sea
by Dow Beckham
from Arago Books
for Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Barricades and Borders
Short Oxford History of the Modern World
by Robert Gildea
3rd edition from Oxford University
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Battle Cry of Freedom
Oxford History of the United States
by James M. McPherson
from Oxford University
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$24.95
Battle for the Falklands
by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins
from W. W. Norton and Co.
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Battle from the Start
by Brian Steel Wills
from HarperCollins
for 9th grade-Adult
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$15.00 (1 in stock)
Battle of Austerlitz
by Trevor Dupuy
from Macmillan
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in France (Location: HISMC-FRA)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
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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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)
Beginning of the Republic
A Basic History of the United States Volume 2
by Clarence B. Carson
from American Textbook Committee
American History Reference for 9th-Adult
in Basic History of the United States (Location: HISCUR-US)
$17.00
Ben Snipes, Northwest Cattle King
by Roscoe Sheller
Third Edition from Binford & Mort Publishing
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Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings
Signet Classics
by Benjamin Franklin
Reprint from Signet Classics
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$5.95
Beyond Stateliest Marble
Leaders in Action Series
by Doug Wilson
from Cumberland House
Biography for
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Big Burn
by Timothy Egan
from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Birth of the Modern
by Paul Johnson
from HarperCollins
Social Commentary for 10th-Adult
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$12.00
Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire
by James Headlam
from CreateSpace
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$8.99
Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge
by John S. D. Eisenhower
1st edition from Da Capo Press
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Black & Tan
by Doug Wilson
from Canon Press
for Adult
in Culture & Discernment (Location: XCU-DIS)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Black Odyssey
by Mary Cable
from Penguin Classics
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$7.00 (1 in stock)
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