James P. Stobaugh - World History-Student: Observations and Assessments from Creation to Today

About the Author

James P. Stobaugh and his wife, Karen, have homeschooled their four children since 1985. They have a growing ministry, For Such a Time As This Ministries, committed to challenging this generation to change its world for Christ.

Dr. Stobaugh is an ordained pastor, a certified secondary teacher, and an SAT coach. His academic credentials include: BA, cum laude Vanderbilt University; Teacher Certification, Peabody College for Teachers; MA, Rutgers University; MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary; Merrill Fellow, Harvard University; DMin Gordon Conwell Seminary.

Dr. Stobaugh has written articles for magazines: Leadership , Presbyterian Survey , Princeton Spire , Ministries Today , and Pulpit Digest . Dr. Stobaughs books include the SAT Preparation Course for the Christian Student, the ACT Preparation Course for the Christian Student, as well as American History, British History, and World History high school curriculum .

Contents

Preface

History is meant to be a light that illuminates the present and directs attention toward the possibilities of the future. However, history is only ancient, dusty chronicles if one does not honestly study and asses these written records of events, as well as the events themselves. History is a social sciencea branch of knowledge that uses specific methods and tools to achieve its goals.

Historians examine archival footprints. Some of these are written records: diaries, letters, oral histories, recordings, inscriptions, biographies, and many others. At times history seems merely to be a list of kings, of wars, and of other significant things. As a result, it can seem like only the study of a bunch of dead people. Who cares? Like Huck Finn, we quip, After supper the widow Douglas got out her book and learned me about Moses and the bulrushes, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didnt care no more about him, because I dont take no stock in dead people (Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn).

The United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland

But history is alive, and full of interesting, glorious, and useful things! And it is terribly relevant to all of us.

There are lots of different histories. The Earth, the world of nature, and the universe all have pasts, but they have no histories, per se. Histories have to do with real, alive (or once alive) people. Only human societies have histories, based on collective memories from which they reconstruct their pasts.

Not all attempts to reconstruct the past have resulted in histories. My Uncle George (not a real uncle but just a family friend), grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, had an entirely different view of African history than I, a father of three African-American children. Uncle George had a delusional history that was very much like a Nazi propaganda film, but it was not a history. It was a past made up of venal images, obscured remembrances, and visceral prejudices that stewed in his poor, conflicted mind.

My history was big enough to love Uncle Georgemay he rest in peaceand I did, as did my three children. And in my life, we were brought together into an eternal peace. Perhaps that is the best thing one can say about world history; it brings everyone together in one shared history.

To be a true history, an account of the past must not only retell what happened but must also relate events and people to each other. It must inquire into causes and effects. It must try to discern falsehood in the old records, such as attempts of historical figures to make them look better than they really were. It must also present the evidence on which its findings are based.