Filling in the Gaps

I was a pretty good student in school, and although my interests were mainly in the scientific realm, I enjoyed learning about history... especially American history. All these years later, I would say that I have a fairly good grasp of American history and a basic grasp of world history. However, when I began teaching my own children history, I was amazed at what I didn't know. I knew the history of various places (American history, European history, Asian history, etc), but I couldn't tell you what was happening in Japan while Europe was in the throws of the Thirty-Years War. I couldn't tell you what was happening in Babylon while the Egyptians were building the pyramids. I couldn't tell you what was happening in South America while the Thirteen Colonies were declaring independence from Great Britain. I had a basic knowledge of history, but it had no context. As I began teaching my children sequential world history using the four-volume Story of the World curriculum, all the pieces began to fall into place and world history began to make much more sense to me.

Now that I have a taste for contextual world history, I want more than can be provided through a grammar-stage level curriculum. I want to move on to the logic stage. Fortunately, the author of the Story of the World curriculum that I am using with my kids, Susan Wise Bauer, has just come out with the first of a four-volume world history series for adults. I just ordered my copy of The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Account to the Fall of Rome and can't wait until it arrives and I can delve in and enter the next level of understanding of sequential world history. Care to join me?