Written in the straightforward, engaging style that has become Susan Wise Bauer's trademark, The Story of the World series covers the sweep of human history. This read-aloud series is designed for parents to share with elementary (grades 1-4) grade children. This series is also appropriate for grades 5-8 to do on their own. Volume I, Ancient Times includes the First Nomads, Egypt, the Jewish People, Abraham and Joseph, Hammurabi and the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Ancient China, Ancient Africa, Exodus, the Phoenicians, the Greeks and Rome. 338 pages, indexed with pronunciation key, chronology & geography. Softcover.
Average Rating: 3 out of 5 stars(3 out of 5 stars)
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0.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by ang (Houston), July 26, 2009
At first I was excited to have a history text written in a story format. The stories were just that - stories. There were enough historical innacuracies to not recommend this book to anyone.
This is not a "living" text.
5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by ~WJM (Bellingham, WA), July 21, 2009
How wonderful to find such a great series to use as our core History Curriculum - easy to read and engaging, helps my son to see the pictures in his head and to imagine what might have actually happened. When combined with real books and used in conjunction with our wall timeline and lots of geography & maps, this makes for a very well rounded education. It makes teaching easy!
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Chelle (New Zealand), July 02, 2009
We used The Bible, a few portions of Mystery of History Vol 1, and Egermeier's Bible Story Book, to start our history lessons from Gods beginning of our history and to teach other biblically related history. SOTW 1 covered the other areas of history.
We used this excellent story style recounting of history to enjoy reading the portions of non bible based history Mrs. Bauer outlines.
So for us this was an excellent text.
It was also good to compare how the other narrators presented their re-telling of bible events to the bibles accounting ~ Our children, 6 & 8years old, enjoyed this approach immensley.
0.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Barbara (Metamora, MI), February 24, 2009
I was so excited about getting this curriculum and teaching it . . . I thought the 'story book' approach was going to be helpful, but I'm very disappointed and I have two children who are very confused! I thought the author was clearly going to intertwine Biblical history with world history. She just tells 'stories' that appear to be very similar to Bible stories. The tip off should have been in the very beginning when she used BC/BCE - I ignored it and shouldn't have.
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Eur.inf Tech.sol.and Dev.s.l.u. Cif B62761770 (08042 Barcelona,), November 24, 2008
Me decepcionó un poco el tamaño y la encuadernación del libro, pues es tapa blanda y libro de bolsillo, pero el contenido que es lo mas importante merece la pena, está en un inglés muy fácil de seguir, y los contenidos son realmente sencillos para explicar, bien como lección o bien usarlo como libro de lectura, porque va explicando la historia, pero también introduce a modo de cuento, una historia de una familia por ejemplo. Altamente recomendable.
0.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Debbie (Florida), September 23, 2008
If you want to teach history from a Christian perspective, this book is NOT for you. It starts out telling the first people were nomads and that they evolved into farmers. This is not Biblical teaching as the Bible tells us that the first man ever born was a farmer. Bauer also teaches that man spread out over the earth because they were nomads. There is no mention of God dispersing men at the tower of Babel by confusing their language.
This book also shares ancient stories that mimic Bible stories and places them before the Bible story potentially leaving one wondering if the Bible was plagiarized. The author explains the exodus as a sign that Egypt was growing weak and gives no glory to God for their escape.
This book has the potential to cast doubts and leave confusion about ones faith in many areas, making it a poor choice for someone who is a Christian.
4.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Tandy Hammond (Clermont,Florida), June 13, 2008
We are a public school family that uses our home as a base for all education. This summer we are reading, and following up with fun activities from Ancient Times. Thanks to Susan for a study that combines world, american, and biblical history! We are already looking forward to our next volume.
0.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Robin (Deming, NM), March 07, 2008
I agree it is a nice idea, but in Chapter 7, they take a lot of unbiblical liberty with the stories. They say that Abraham's father died, then God called him to leave. In the Bible, his father lived several years after Abraham left him. Also they include Benjamin as one of the brothers that made fun of Joseph before he was sold into slavery. These things are just plainly not the case in the Bible. I wrote to tell them about these issues, and of course they never wrote back because the workbooks and activities are all based on these nontruths and it would clearly mess up publishing. Makes me wonder what else they got wrong. We have pretty much put this book down because I just don't trust it's validity.
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