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The Mystery of History
The Mystery of History: Volume IV Wars of Independence to Modern Times
The Mystery of History series is everything a family needs for teaching history with a strong Biblical worldview. Multi-age activities, book and video lists, memory helps, timeline suggestions, quizzes, and map work included. Chronological, Classical, Complete. Volume 4 covers "Wars of Independence to Modern times" and is recommended for 6th grade and up.
632 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 14, 2022
The class is almost over, but as the teacher I have finished! There were some very good interpretatios. My scholars had a hard time with the personal discussions, like I was x yearts old when this happened or my birthday when this other thing happened. The "nobody cares" was yelled when this was said. But I reminded my charges that the author put her entire self in the book. I liked the anectdotes personally.
I had the the hardest time with the discussion of the Civil War. which the author entitled The War Between the States. The author is originally from Texas and as one who now lives in Virginia, but who is originally from NYS, this almost deification of Robert E. Lee is a lot for me and the argument for "states' rights" is so frustrating in Christian homeschool history books. While The Mystery of History was less concerning than an Abeka text who flat out says that the "Civil War" was about states' rights and attempts to justify this position, The Mystery of History does try to balance this opinion. Dear reader, when you get to this point, please ensure that you have prepared your students with some Crash Course History with John Green, A History of US by Joy Hakim, and this short video from Colonel Ty Seidule from the US Army about whether the Civil War about slavery or states' rights to help your student get a more rounded view of the Civil War/ War Between the States/ War of Northern Aggression... sigh.
https://www.prageru.com/video/was-the...
The book itself is beautiful. It is gives a lot of information- much more than the firtst 3 volumes and it takes a longer time to get through. We read along with the audiobook so that we all could hear the pronounciatios and we could do history when leaving co-op :D
I am unsure if I will use this text again, only time will tell.
I had the the hardest time with the discussion of the Civil War. which the author entitled The War Between the States. The author is originally from Texas and as one who now lives in Virginia, but who is originally from NYS, this almost deification of Robert E. Lee is a lot for me and the argument for "states' rights" is so frustrating in Christian homeschool history books. While The Mystery of History was less concerning than an Abeka text who flat out says that the "Civil War" was about states' rights and attempts to justify this position, The Mystery of History does try to balance this opinion. Dear reader, when you get to this point, please ensure that you have prepared your students with some Crash Course History with John Green, A History of US by Joy Hakim, and this short video from Colonel Ty Seidule from the US Army about whether the Civil War about slavery or states' rights to help your student get a more rounded view of the Civil War/ War Between the States/ War of Northern Aggression... sigh.
https://www.prageru.com/video/was-the...
The book itself is beautiful. It is gives a lot of information- much more than the firtst 3 volumes and it takes a longer time to get through. We read along with the audiobook so that we all could hear the pronounciatios and we could do history when leaving co-op :D
I am unsure if I will use this text again, only time will tell.
June 12, 2024
It is convenient to have so many historical events laid out in one volume, and this book (as well as the other books in the series) really does make a good history spine for a Christian homeschool. It can provide a jumping-off point for deeper study into topics of interest or give an overview into events and people that help connect the dots between components of the larger picture of history. The chapters go more in-depth than your average textbook and aren't as dry.
However, we found the conversational tone to be grating and often a bit condescending. The author got very chatty and kept inserting personal notes into the text, which both my students and I found to be somewhat irritating and either boastful or kind of self-absorbed. It just didn't work well within the scope of this book to keep mentioning her family history or the fact that such-and-such happened the year she was born. While reading aloud, I ended up editing out her superfluous comments on the fly (which was mentally tiring), including frequent usage of phrases like "You see," and "Remember that!"
There were also biases and opinions with which we disagree (which is fine), but they were a little pushy (which is not). We did have good discussions and shared with each other things we've learned in our individual studies which gave a broader, more informed view of any given topic than what we found herein. Some of the chapters were surprisingly lacking in information and we found several inaccuracies presented in an opinionated manner.
I don't know if it's because we are older (doing high school now) or if the tone of the books has changed (or maybe we are becoming more discerning readers), but my own opinion of this series has lowered somewhat. I still appreciate it and the work that went into it, and most of the entries are good, helpful, informative, and interesting. It just could have done without some elements which would have made it more effective.
In spite of it all, I am still looking forward to reading Volume III this autumn because it covers an era in which I am quite interested. (We ended up proceeding outside of chronological order as Volume III was backordered for an extended period of time and didn't arrive in time to start our school year, but Volume IV had.) It is our last book to read in the four-part series.
Disclaimer: we did skip over some of the lessons in Vol. IV, particularly those whose topics we have already studied extensively, so technically have not read it in its entirety. Take that for whatever it's worth.
However, we found the conversational tone to be grating and often a bit condescending. The author got very chatty and kept inserting personal notes into the text, which both my students and I found to be somewhat irritating and either boastful or kind of self-absorbed. It just didn't work well within the scope of this book to keep mentioning her family history or the fact that such-and-such happened the year she was born. While reading aloud, I ended up editing out her superfluous comments on the fly (which was mentally tiring), including frequent usage of phrases like "You see," and "Remember that!"
There were also biases and opinions with which we disagree (which is fine), but they were a little pushy (which is not). We did have good discussions and shared with each other things we've learned in our individual studies which gave a broader, more informed view of any given topic than what we found herein. Some of the chapters were surprisingly lacking in information and we found several inaccuracies presented in an opinionated manner.
I don't know if it's because we are older (doing high school now) or if the tone of the books has changed (or maybe we are becoming more discerning readers), but my own opinion of this series has lowered somewhat. I still appreciate it and the work that went into it, and most of the entries are good, helpful, informative, and interesting. It just could have done without some elements which would have made it more effective.
In spite of it all, I am still looking forward to reading Volume III this autumn because it covers an era in which I am quite interested. (We ended up proceeding outside of chronological order as Volume III was backordered for an extended period of time and didn't arrive in time to start our school year, but Volume IV had.) It is our last book to read in the four-part series.
Disclaimer: we did skip over some of the lessons in Vol. IV, particularly those whose topics we have already studied extensively, so technically have not read it in its entirety. Take that for whatever it's worth.
December 22, 2023
Rated this book 4.5 stars. My son's 8th grade history curriculum. I used the same book for my daughter so I was already familiar with the book and format. This time I read the book all the way through. I find Hobar picks a fairly wide sampling of snapshots of history compared to standard history books. It's still very much from the Western perspective and with a very strong Christian worldview. Nevertheless, she does not shy away from some of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity.
May 31, 2023
Great homeschool history from a Christian worldview.
May 19, 2016
The chapters were very long. It's better for upper elementary and junior high. I find Asian history to be very boring. I enjoyed the last quarter the most. The chapters on WWII, the U.S.S.R, former Yugoslavia, and Persian Gulf were helpful.
November 30, 2021
Another great read! We supplemented with the YouTube videos and additional information searches. History is not G rated but it is SO INTERESTING and these books kept us interested and point us to Christ each chapter.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews