Story of the World Volume 2 The Middle Ages "From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance" is authored by Susan Wise Bauer. She is a faculty member of the College of William and Mary, and co-author of "The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home."

Story of the World Volume 2 The Middle Ages is the second volume of a four volume "Story of the World" book set. The book is divided into forty-two chapters which are comprised of the following:

Introduction:

Ch. 1 The Glory That Was Rome

Ch. 2 The Early Days of Britain

Ch. 3 Christianity Come to Britain

Ch. 4 The Byzantine Empire

Ch. 5 The Medieval Indian Empire

Ch. 6 The Rise of Islam

Ch. 7 Islam Becomes an Empire

Ch. 8 The Great Dynasties of China

Ch. 9 East of China

Ch. 10 The Bottom of the World

Ch. 11 The Kingdom of the Franks

Ch. 12 The Islamic Invasion

Ch. 13 The Great Kings of France

Ch. 14 The Arrival of the Norsemen

Ch. 15 The First Kings of England

Ch. 16 England After the Conquest

Ch. 17 Knights and Samurai

Ch. 18 The Age of Crusades

Ch. 19 A New Kind of King

Ch. 20 The Diaspora

Ch. 21 The Mongols Devastate the East

Ch. 22 Exploring the Mysterious East

Ch. 23 The First Russians

Ch. 24 The Ottoman Empire

Ch. 25 The End of the World

Ch. 26 France and England at War

Ch. 27 War for the English Throne

Ch. 28 The Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal

Ch. 29 African Kingdoms

Ch. 30 India Under the Moghuls

Ch. 31 Exploring New Worlds

Ch. 32 The American Kingdoms

Ch. 33 Spain, Portugal and the New World

Ch. 34 Martin Luther's New Ideas

Ch. 35 The Renaissance

Ch. 36 Reformation and Counter Reformation

Ch. 37 The New Universe

Ch. 38 England's Greatest Queen

Ch. 39 England's Greatest Playwright

Ch. 40 New Ventures to the Americas

Ch. 41 Explorations to the New World

Ch. 42 Empires Collide

To round out your history curriculum I would highly recommend purchasing the activity books and test packets which accompany each volume. These resources are available in either paperback or PDF-download.

Based on our experience with this series and the content of the curriculum, I would recommend it for Grades 5-8. Overall we have been pleased with Ms. Bauer's approach to world history. To continue your study of World history, I would recommend Story of the World Volume 3 Early Modern Times "From Elizabeth to the First Forty-Niners."

I recently purchased the whole hardback set of The Story of the World. We homeschool and my younger "middle school" age child, has found history very boring. Before our school year began, I came across a blog post about notebooking pages (kids write about what is read & either draw a picture or print something related to what they learned). We began reading volume 2 due to volume 1 being backordered at the time. Instead of reading one chapter per day, I read one section under it's beginning bold title. This breaks up the chapters and my child writes a paragraph and adds a picture. We should finish the book by the end of our school year. So far this is working out great and I'm hoping my child begins to enjoy History as time goes on. I really wish I had found this book set for my older child since our previous History was dry and textbook-like. Highly Recommend!

I look forward to reading this book with my daughter! It makes history interesting and enjoyable to learn about.