The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised Edition

Despite my background, please don't think that I expect more from this book (or my student!) than is reasonable. This is after all, first grade, and the aim is simply to introduce the student to the period in a logical, engaging fashion. Unfortunately, the book only succeeds in the latter department.

The book would have done well to better define history as a study. While a certain amount of legendary material is necessary for the period under consideration, it's important for the student to know the difference between legends about real people and things we know for certain about those people. In addition, there is mythological material which is more appropriate in a literary or religious context. There are a few Bible stories, Siddhartha (Buddha), Jesus and several Greek myths are presented. While these stories and figures have bearing on history and are culturally significant, I think their handling is ultimately confusing to the student since they are not presented in a strict historical context. Jesus' resurrection is related in the same matter of fact tone as the rest of the book. Nowhere does the author state whether or not he really came back to life. His death is attributed to the fears of the Romans ("If the Jewish people had a king of their own, they wouldn't want to obey Augustus Caesar any more.") This nonsensical statement makes it sound like a competition between the two great figures, when in fact Augustus had already been dead for 19 years, and the then current emperor Tiberius couldn't have cared less about what happened in a troublesome backwater province, so long as the tax levies flowed back to Rome. The book often shifts between historical and legendary points of view without alerting the reader to the change. This is a serious defect in a book whose audience members are just starting to be able to effectively differentiate between fantasy and reality. I'm not saying these figures and beliefs should not be presented, but facts and legends must be teased apart by the parent for the student, lest misconceptions take root. If you are not well acquainted with history, you may fall prey to a few misconceptions yourself!

The book does not employ the chronological approach recommended in Bauer's other book, "The Well-Trained Mind." The text jumps back and forth across centuries, even millennia. The late Babylonian empire is followed by the Minoan civilization of Crete, a backward jump of 1500 years. This happens a lot. The chapters can be read out of sequence with some difficulty (what we did), but it would have been better if the information were presented in a more logical sequence.

The book omits important details and peoples. There is nothing about the Celts, except in passing in one section on the Gallic Wars and another on the British rebellion during the early Roman empire. Pretty short shrift for a people who ranged across most of Europe for a millenium or two and whose culture has had such a deep and lasting influence. In the chapter on Alexander, Aristotle's tutelage of Alexander is not mentioned, nor is the burning of Persepolis. A previous chapter devotes space to this royal Persian city, why not follow through and connect the dots?

Vaguely inaccurate statements such as these are staples of the text: "Alexander's army was the best in the world." Well, really, Alexander's army had a great general, a revolutionary strategist. The Persian army he defeated was arguably "greater," but they were defeated by Alexander's boldness and cunning. "Alexander was the greatest king of ancient times." Well, he only ruled for 12 years, he was on campaign that entire time, and so didn't do much in the way of administrating his new empire, writing law or other "kingly" work. He was arguably the greatest general of ancient times. I think a 7 year old can understand these distinctions. Thus it seems at times as if the text is unnecessarily simplified. Certainly the author could have subsituted "greatest general" for "greatest king" and described the army as the "smartest" or "fastest," either of which would have been more accurate and more revealing.

So while the book has been enjoyable, it's also been very aggravating, and I'm frankly surprised by the lack of careful editing/fact-checking, given the author's views on education.


Breathing New Life into Ancient History   April 1, 2002
 296 out of 316 found this review helpful

As a history major, I have always prided myself on the fact that I could find fascinating a subject that left many bored. However, when we began my daughter's first grade history lessons using the "Usbourne Book of World History" (using the lesson plan laid out in the excellent "Well Trained Mind" by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise), even I found the material a bit dry; it is, after all, an encyclopedia. Apparently, Susan Wise Bauer felt similarly about its limitations, as she went out and wrote her own history tome. "The Story of the World" is so fantastic, it takes my breath away! The read aloud text on ancient times presents history in small chunks, and is written in an engaging, story-like manner that delights my children, who are 4 and 6 years old. This delightful manner in no way means that the subject matter is "watered down"; Bauer still introduces children to the facts and terminology that are relevant to the subject. For instance, the chapter on "The First Writing" explains the origins and meanings of "hierolglyphics", "Mesopatamia", "cuneiform", and "papyrus".
After listening in rapt pleasure to the text, children will delve into the accompanying curriculum guide and activity book. The guide provides thought provoking questions on the text, and offers an example of the type narration that the child should give (the child is expected to briefly narrate back to the parent what they just read about in the text). The guide book provides map work, coloring pages, puzzles, and review cards which can be copied from the book for use, and also includes wonderful craft ideas (most of which, as an inherently lazy person, I found very "do-able" without undue effort). This week, we carved a cuneiform monogram into clay, made a hieroglyphic scroll on paper, and left them outside to see which will prove to be more durable over time; this will illustrate to the children why the papyrus documents of Egypt did not survive the centuries, but the older cuneiform tablets of Sumer did. For our next project, we plan on mummifying a chicken from the grocery store using the directions from the guide.
I love this history program, and history is now my daughter's favorite subject. I can't wait for Ms. Bauer to write the next volume (this volume covers earliest nomads to the fall of the Roman Empire). The only downside is that the cirriculum guide comes as a thick packet of pages, rather than being bound into a book. However, the pages have pre-cut holes and are easily stored a binder, and this makes it very easy to copy pages from the guide. ... I feel that this course would be a bargain at twice the price.


don't waste your money   October 31, 2005
 140 out of 171 found this review helpful

As a Waldorf educator, I have to say I am coming at this book with a bit of a slant, so you may as well know that in advance. In the Waldorf tradition, storytelling is the main way to convey information between adult and child and very high standards are set for the topics covered and the style in which this is done. Susan Wise Bauer is apparently under the impression that talking down to children is an appropriate conversational style, and if this is the tone that has made her so popular, I am very sorry for it. The ancient legends retold in this book (such as for Roman history) are so poorly written that I felt as if I were watching South Park does archaeology. There is no sense of reverence, no sense of time. The main feeling I got from this book is that people in the past were stupid and aren't I glad I live now when we really KNOW things. For example, she spends two long paragraphs going on and on about how people didn't used to take baths; the very next (brief) paragraph describes when the hunter/gatherers transitioned over to agriculture -- a major turning point in the evolution of human history, I might add -- it reads, in its entirety: "That night at dinner, there is horse meat to eat. Tarak's uncle says, 'I met other men a little further down the riverbank. But they weren't hunting. They were putting seeds into the ground. They told me that if we put seeds into the ground too, grain would grow right here where we are. We could pick it, and we wouldn't have to keep looking for new fields to gather food in. I think we'll stay here for a while and watch what they're doing.'" The next chapter is ancient Egypt.

In short, she rushes through topics with actual historical merit, such as the discovery of new concepts, and dwells on the part she thinks kids will like best. This may sell a lot of books, but what is it really teaching? If your child has learned any type of critical thinking skills whatsoever, they will quickly see through this shallow text which neither raises nor answers any questions of interest. And it's a shame because, done properly, history is a fascinating subject for children.

And you may as well know that the greater part of the book is legends and tales from other cultures throughout early history. This material is easily come by in other books, by better authors, and you'll be happier with the results if you spend some time gathering several collections of (well-written!) myths and cultures and reading them with your child. You're FAR better off buying Hillyer's A Child's History of the World. Use it as your main text, (knowing in advance that it has a Eurocentric and Christian bias) and simply supplement it with your desired materials as described.

This book should be relegated to the trash heap.


What a horrible book!   September 9, 2003
 102 out of 165 found this review helpful

I just received my copy of 'The Story of the World...' Vol. 1. I bought it based on the raving reviews I read here. Now, I'm left wondering: Who did Susan Wise Bauer pay to write these ecstatic reviews?

While the book covers a wide range of topics, from ancient China to ancient Sumer, the actual information related is sparse. There is no depth to it, as one would expect from a person who claims to champion substantive learning. It is more trivia than trivium.

One of the most disappointing things was the author's 'history' of the Jews (and Christianity), which is not a history, but a modern-day Christian midrash (fanciful interpretive retelling). Did you know, for example, that Terah, the father of Abraham, left Ur because he was afraid that it was going to be attacked? It doesn't say that in my copy of the Bible. Maybe the author was reading a copy of the Samaritan Torah.

Did you know that the Romans killed Jesus because he was so popular they were afraid the Jews were going to make him their king? Perhaps this was gleaned from one of the Gnostic Gospels. Or, perhaps the author misread John 11:48--which, in its own anti-Semitic way, claims that the Jewish leadership arranged for Jesus to be killed because they were afraid Jesus would take away their power. Confusing the Jewish leadership with the Romans is a big mistake, all historicity of this claim asside.

Finally, some important ęsthetic notes: the typesetting of the book is rotten--so bad, it's difficult to read. It was obviously put together by someone who had no idea how to make a book. Try reading a poorly typeset book for more than a few minutes, and you'll see what I mean. To add to this, the book reads like you're listening to a patronising adult speaking to a child, which makes it just that much more difficult to bear. The language is stilted and forced, and every third sentence ends with an exclamation point!

This is a far cry from a classical history for a classical child. If you want a good classical history to homeschool your child, help them through Livy, or Josephus. Don't waste your money on this book!!!


An especially inaccessible venture for the average 6yo   December 17, 2005
 81 out of 91 found this review helpful

This is a very good survey for World History for the elementary set. That, in itself, makes it problematic. I am very familiar with the sequence for history recommended in The Well Trained Mind and the idea that "history must start at the beginning." This is all well and good when you're an adult or an older child beginning a survey of world history. When you are six years old - the age at which this volume is aimed - this concept will be totally irrelevant, as is reading about 95% of the subjects found in this book.

About 2 years ago, when starting first grade for my then 6 1/2 yo son, I bought SOTW 1 and the corresponding activity book. Yes, he liked some of the stories - as stories, fairytales, etc - and he enjoyed doing the activities often, though it was a bit of a cognitive leap to connect what he was doing with "this was important 5000 years ago and here's why."

For the most part, however, the subject matter of this book is entirely without context for even the most sophisticated 6yo. All the parents I have talked to who started out on this program abandoned it halfway through for the same reasons. The kids might be persuaded to listen to its chapters as part of a curious ongoing story, but none of them could get into it as an actual history lesson. They didn't care about Ur, didn't have an interest in Sargon or ancient Mesopotamia or *whatever*, etc. If you were six, would you?

Another caveat, which I feel is an important one: if your child has auditory processing delays of any kind (as is common with kids with ADHD, Asperger's, etc.) or if she or he simply doesn't enjoy being read to, then this curriculum will absolutely bomb, as it requires you read it all yourself to the child and ask him to regurgitate it and apply its minutiae to the activity. But unless your child is a very advanced reader and enjoys reading, it's too difficult for 6/7yos to read themselves, and again, there is nothing that really makes it accessible to them as history. That the book starts out with a fake story about a fake little kid in the Stone Age is, I suppose, a good start (though not a very good foundation for a history book, since my son asked me if that child was a real person) but that's quickly abandoned and within a dozen pages the child is being expected to remember the names and dates of barely pronounceable millenia-old emperors.

My son is a very strong reader who also has auditory processing delays, and it took sometimes two or three readings or more of a text from me before he could answer the questions in the activity books. Even when he was making concerted efforts to "pay attention" it was difficult for him. I started letting him read the passages himself toward the end of our use of this program, and that certainly helped, but by then, he was totally dreading "doing history" and we ended up going with another curriculum halfway through the year.

I do think the principles set forth in this book are admirable and I love the idea of giving a child a well-rounded history and social studies education that isn't just about "our community helpers" and 6 years of American history before one year of World History. However, this year, we did do American History for the first semester ("Our American Heritage" from A Beka books) which not only taught my child a lot about the historical context for a lot of our cultural traditions, but also slowly introduced him to the idea that history is, indeed, relevant to one's every day life.

Now that this has happened, and now that my son and I have been to Renaissance fairs, which lead to a period where he really wanted to read all about knights and the Renaissance era, and we also spent the last year and a half reading about Greek and Roman myths, and he knows all about the Reformation and how it lead to the founding of the US, etc. - NOW I think we may give SOTW Volume 2 a crack, with him reading the text on his own. But he's nearly 9 now - nearing the "logic" stage that Susan Wise Bauer talks about in WTM. Now he is starting to be able to put the things he memorizes into larger context. I can't help but think that there is a real danger of totally inculcating a child against the thrills of history study, and that to the average first grader, doing ancient history as set out in this book would seem like much ado about nothing.

I know that this will get me a ton of negative "not helpful" votes from all the WTM devotees. I'm not saying it doesn't work for anyone, and I'm not saying that only bad parents (or whatever) would use this. It definitely is a good ancient history survey (though I agree with the reviewer that says that a bit more distinguishing fact from legend or allegory would've been helpful) and if this curriculum went really well for you and your kids, that's great, but that wasn't the case for us, and it hasn't been the case for a lot of HSing families we know. Hopefully this review can serve as a helpful alternative view for some families, if not all.