Christ the King, Lord of History [junior high]

by Anne W. Carroll

TAN Books

Catholics, especially, will appreciate this Christ-centered presentation of world history. Anne Carroll uses stories, quotes, and original sources to present a lively, interesting history that is quite different than most. She uses church history as the focal point, while covering the broad expanse of events.

The first few chapters draw heavily upon the Bible with chapters titled “Abraham,” “Moses,” and “The Kingdom of Israel.” Carroll occasionally presents as fact, details that remain unproven, especially in these early chapters; e.g., “Earlier than about 3000 B.C., we have no written historical records because writing had not been invented.” Students should be made aware of this so that they do not accept all statements as proven fact. (This is true of other texts, also.)

Carroll presents history from the Catholic perspective, including events ignored by most Protestant texts and contradicting Protestant viewpoints on others. Review questions at the end of each chapter generally require fairly complex answers rather than simple recall of facts. Project suggestions are excellent, but don’t ask students to tackle more than one per chapter!

This text is more interesting than most available for junior high level. However, it is not a comprehensive world history since it focuses primarily on western civilization. I would also recommend it as a counterbalance and enhancement to be read alongside other texts in which either a Protestant or “non-sectarian” view dominates or along with real books.

An optional workbook provides a better mixture of questions for each chapter along with a removable answer key. Save money by purchasing the set of text and workbook.