Title: World History Made Simple: Matching History With the Bible
Author: Ruth Beechick
Major Themes: History
Synopsis: In a short, very readable study, world history from Creation to Christ is presented, bringing together Biblical history with what else was happening in the world at the time.
A few months ago, I set myself the task of reading as many world history textbooks as I could get my hands on, in order to review them. I was telling a friend about this goal, as I borrowed one of her books, and she pulled World History Made Simple off the shelf and said I should read it, too. It took me awhile to get around to it, because I was already in the middle of Streams of Civilization, but once I picked it up I loved it! I had just read Unwrapping the Pharoahs, so it was interesting to see how similarly Egyptian history was presented in the two books. I checked the bibliography in World History Made Simple to see if Ruth Beechick had used Unwrapping the Pharoahs as a source, and she didn’t. In fact, both books were published the same year.
Basically, World History Made Simple gives a quick overview of world history from Creation to the birth of Christ, correlating the history of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome with the story told in the Bible. Every subchapter includes a reading from the Bible; in the first chapter there are discussion questions before the reading to help you focus, and after the reading, and a discussion of what else was happening in the world at the time, there are notebooking activities to help cement the history you’re learning. At the end of the chapter is a brief activity to review the entire chapter and summarize what you’ve learned.
This book is a great supplement to any study of ancient history, for anyone from about middle school on up. I really like how it pulls together threads from the Bible, history, and archaeology to present the whole picture of what happened in the ancient world. It is a great introduction to history from a Biblical perspective. It’s short, and very readable.
No warnings!
Age levels:
Listening Level—Ages 8 – 12, 10 – 12
Reading Independently—Ages 10 – 12, 12 – 15, 15 and Above, Adults
Links to buy this book:
Amazon: Paperback
AbeBooks: View Choices on AbeBooks.com
Leave a Reply