United States History

What should we say about the United States of America? So much has already been said, adding our two cents is a bit redundant or presumptuous, depending on your perspective. Certainly, no one needs us to outline the facts, the major events and figures, or to describe our unique written Constitution and democratic-republican system.

We can offer a bit of perspective. It's nothing new, nothing we came up with on our own, but it is different from a lot of the prevailing notions about both history in general and our nation in particular.

For starters, there's no specific reference to the U.S. in the Bible. The principles found in God's Word that apply to all nations certainly apply to the United States as well, but we aren't a Christian nation, we don't hold a special place in biblical prophecy, and Manifest Destiny is the result of Enlightenment rationalist views about the Progress of Mankind rather than being rooted in any kind of Christian attitude.

That said, many of the first settlers of the New World were dedicated Christians seeking the right to worship God without the constraints of political entanglement or government-imposed strictures and doctrine. The Pilgrims came in 1620, just 13 years after the first successful English settlement at Jamestown, and the Puritan settlers followed soon after.

Their arrivals and colonization didn't make America Christian, of course. It was a broad continent, largely unknown, and the initial colonies weren't strictly bound together at first, as they were later to become. By that time, things had become substantially more secular, so that by the 18th century many Americans were just as degenerate as their European counterparts. Fortunately, men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were around to preach the true Gospel, and to initiate a revival known as the Great Awakening.

Secular forces were still at work, though. While there were definitely many Christians involved, the American Revolution was largely the result of Enlightenment philosophizing, and men were convinced that America could produce a virtuous and stable population if education and participatory government were enforced. So they rebelled against England, and the United States republic was formed.

Ever since, groups and individuals have tried to call Americans back to their Christian roots. That's the wrong strategy: we don't need to call anyone back to anything, we need to point the way forward to the pursuit of Christ and the bringing of His Gospel and glory to every corner of the earth no matter what our country of origin. That America has been so materially blessed simply means we have more options at our disposal for proclaiming and bringing the Word to the rest of the world.

Our study of United States history is consequently Christ-centered. Not because we think America is more Christian than other countries, but because it (like all other nations) is under Christ's control as King of Heaven and Lord of Time. Of course, you shouldn't abandon study of the facts, people and events, but they only attain true meaning when viewed through the lens of Christ's ultimate plan of redemption and self-glorification.

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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1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About American History
by John A. Garraty
1st edition from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in American History Reference (Location: HISA-REF)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
1776
by David McCullough
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
500 Nations
by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
1st edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
$28.00 (1 in stock)
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
by Chester G. Hearn
from US Naval Institute Press
for 9th-Adult
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Admiral of the Ocean Sea
by Samuel E. Morison
from Atlantic Monthly Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Buffalo Bill
by Col. William F. Cody
from Harper & Brothers
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Captain Bonneville
by Washington Irving, illustrated by Robert Reynolds
Klickitat from Binford & Mort Publishing
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$12.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
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Age of Exploration
Great Ages of Man
by John R. Hale
from Time-Life Books
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Air Forces of the World
by Sue Butterworth, editor
from Chartwell Books
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$18.00 (1 in stock)
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
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All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
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Amazing Mr. Doolittle
by Quentin Reynolds
from Appleton-Century-Crofts
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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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America the Beautiful/ A Man of Destiny
by the editors of Country Beautiful Magazine
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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
for Adult
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$9.00 (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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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 Indian Dances
by John L. Squires & Robert E. McLean
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American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham
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American Nation
by John D. Hicks
from Riverside Press
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$6.50 (1 in stock)
American President
by Philip Kunhardt, Jr., Philip Kunhardt III, Peter Kunhardt
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$6.00 (2 in stock)
American Story
from Curtis Publishing Co.
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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
from Random House
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Ancient America
Great Ages of Man
by Jonathan Norton Leonard
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Andersonville
by MacKinlay Kantor
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1955 Pulitzer Prize Winner
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Annotated African American Folktales
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Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant
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by Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin
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Apostle of Liberty
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Army of the Potomac - 3 Volumes
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Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
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B. Franklin, Printer
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Battle from the Start
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Beards' New Basic History of the United States
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Beechcraft: Pursuit of Perfection
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Ben Snipes, Northwest Cattle King
by Roscoe Sheller
Third Edition from Binford & Mort Publishing
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Beyond Stateliest Marble
Leaders in Action Series
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Bible and the Constitution
by Verna M. Hall and Rosalie J. Slater
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Big Burn
by Timothy Egan
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Blow Ye Winds Westerly
by Elizabeth Gemming
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Blue and the Gray
by Thomas B. Allen, Photography by Sam Abell
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Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
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Boston
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Boys in the Boat
by Daniel James Brown
from Viking Press
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Brave Men
by Ernie Pyle
from Grosset & Dunlap
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Brave Men
by Ernie Pyle
7th printing, 1945 from Henry Holt and Company
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Bret Harte: Stories of the Early West
by Bret Harte
from Platt and Munk Publishers
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British and European Combat Aircraft
Combat Aircraft Library
by Paul A. Jackson
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British are Coming
The Revolution Trilogy #1 of 3
by Rick Atkinson
from Henry Holt and Company
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Buffalo Bill's Life Story
by William F. Cody, Illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
1966 printing from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
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Buffalo Coat
by Carol Ryrie Brink
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dee Brown
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Call of Duty
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Captain Cook
by Alistair MacLean
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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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Captured!
by Carolyn Paine Miller
1st edition from Christian Herald Books
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Carry a Big Stick
Leaders in Action Series
by George Grant
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-Adult
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Centennial History of the Civil War - 3 Volumes
by Bruce Catton
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Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
by Leslie Alexander Lacy, illustrated by James Barkley
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Chickamauga
by Horace Porter
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Chief Joseph Country
by Bill Gulick
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Christian Life and Character of the Civil United States
by Benjamin F. Morris
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$35.00 (1 in stock)
Civil War: 1861-1865
by David E. Roth
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Colonial Entrepreneur
by Olivia Coolidge, edited by Danny Smith
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Comes the Comrade!
by Alexandra Orme, translated from the Polish by M.A. Michael and L. Meyer
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Coming Fury
Centennial History of the Civil War Volume 1
by Bruce Catton
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Complete Maus
by Art Spiegelman
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Conquerors
by Michael Beschloss
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Constitution of the United States of America
by Founding Fathers
from Applewood Books
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
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$9.95
Count Luckner, the Sea Devil
by Lowell Thomas
from Garden City Books
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Crimsoned Prairie
by S. L. A. Marshall
from Charles Scribner's Sons
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Cry from the Earth
by John Bierhorst
from Four Winds Press
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Crying for a Vision
by Walter Wangerin Jr.
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D-Day: Operation Overlord
from Smithmark Publishers
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Dead and Those About to Die
by John C. McManus
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Death Valley Scotty
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Declaration of Independence with Short Biographies of its Signers
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Destroyers for Great Britain
by Arnold Hague
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Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
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Early Days in Old Oregon
by Katharine B. Judson
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Easy Company Soldier
by Sgt. Don Malarkey
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Embattled Rebel
by James M. McPherson
from Penguin Press
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Enough Wise Men
by Forrest McDonald
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Everything Sad Is Untrue
by Daniel Nayeri
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Explorers of the Pacific
by A. Grove Day
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Ferdinand and Isabella
by William Hickling Prescott
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Biography for 9th-Adult
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Fighting for Liberty and Virtue
by Marvin Olasky
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$5.00 (1 in stock)
Fighting the Flying Circus
by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker
1965 Edition from Doubleday & Company
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Flag Book of the United States
by Whitney Smith
Revised Edition from William Morrow & Company
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Foods of the Americas
from Ten Speed Press
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$7.20 (1 in stock)
Forgotten Founding Father
Leaders in Action Series
by Stephen Mansfield
from Cumberland House
Biography for 9th-12th grade
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Founders of Freedom in America
by David C. Whitney
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$8.00 (1 in stock)
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