Story of the World, Vol. 3 Revised Edition: History for the Classical Child: Early Modern Times

The Story of the World #3

by Susan Wise Bauer, Jeff West (Illustrator)

A beautifully revised edition of the classic world history for children.

Now more than ever, our children need to learn about the people who live all around the world. This engaging guide to other lands weaves world history into a storybook format. Designed as a read-aloud project for parents and children to share (or for older readers to enjoy alone), this book covers the major historical events in the years 1600-1850 on each continent, with maps, illustrations, and tales from each culture. Over 1.3 million copies of The Story of the World have been sold. Newly revised and updated, THE STORY OF THE WORLD, VOLUME 3 includes a new timeline, 40 brand-new illustrations, and a pronunciation guide for unfamiliar names, places, and terms.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, School, Education, Historical, Childrens, Audiobook

523 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 12, 2004

About the author

Susan Wise Bauer is an American author, English instructor of writing and American literature at The College of William and Mary, and founder of Well-Trained Mind Press (formerly Peace Hill Press).

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite history curriculum for children in grade school. I LOVE the activity book that can be purchased. Fun activities! The stories are interesting and perfect to introduce children to the world that came before them.

[Ammie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy these. I listen and follow along while the girls listen more passively. I use it to read ahead and have a better view of what is happening around the world while we focus more on the US while the girls are young.

[Elizabeth Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book, some of the chapters twice, and taught out of it for an entire school year. This is a great volume for kids and teens to learn an overview of world history. Obviously it doesn't teach everything, but it goes over a lot of main events.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading this for school with my 4th-8th graders. I like that the readings are short , but meaty. I feel like my kids were engaged and were able to retain much of what was being read to them. The author is fairly objective in her presentation of history. I would probably use it again in the future withy younger kids.

[Christine Gustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love these books!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book. It was informative, and it had good maps, and some sad, some fun, some silly, some cute, etc stories about the Early Modern Times. I'm reading this book for homeschool with my Mom, and I have to say, before homeschool I dreaded, and hated history class, sometimes I would zone out during the class. I just, didn't enjoy it. This was one of the two first history books for this year, and it was a lot more interesting, only Math was the same, which I don't enjoy that much, but still. Most of the classes are more fun, and I enjoyed the class, and the book. We've been reading it and King Fisher as we call it. It's a history encyclopedia. This is a review from the student's point of view, so it's saying something. I really enjoyed this book for what it was, and sure I didn't give it 5 stars, I mean, it WAS a history book, so there's that. I enjoyed this book though, and I think it was good and educational.

[Suzette · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are huge fans of the Story of the World Series! I love the way history is written in a way that sounds more like a story than a dry narrative. My children and I are looking forward to finishing the series in the fall.

[Evie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love story of the world!

[Alyssa Bohon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our read-aloud history spine. Fun to branch off into more in-depth books along the way, but this keeps us moving through the chronology of world events.

[Dee Kohler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was the best! I literally would stay up late reading it!!

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't necessarily count books we read for school on Goodreads, but seeing as I read this one out loud, I definitely deserve credit.

We respect Bauer's overview of history for elementary and middle grades. As nerdy people, yes we have quibbles, and no we do not think this will be the only history book you will ever need. But it's a great one to start with.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as strong as the earlier volumes and frustratingly non-secular.

[Erin Ching · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great series and I love the way it switches around to different parts of the world so you can see themes that were developing during this stretch of history.

[Jennifer Fertig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this History series. My daughters (14, 12, and 7) listen to the audio version. Jim Weiss is the reader, and we like his voices for characters. Good for all ages. My 7-year-old started listening along to these when she was 3-years-old and colored the history pages.

[Congetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are listening to the Story of the World Series in the car. This is in addition to the history we read during school. This series is useful to introduce my son to historical figures and events. I don't expect him to remember everything, but hope certain facts will stick. As it is told in a narrative story, the information is presented in a more user-friendly way for children and makes history interesting. Plus Jim Weiss, the narrator, uses interesting voices, so it adds to the enjoyment of listening. The tone of these later volumes are changing from the earlier and are written for an older elementary audience. After we finish this series, we will listen or read other history series, to round out the perspectives and biases.

[Amy Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Susan Bauer's Story of the World series. This one is definitely for older kids, but still interesting, thorough without saying too much, and covering topics well, now including quotes from original sources at times, which is fitting for middle school. The activity guide was awesome. These two books (activity guide and reader--in all four volumes) are all a family needs for homeschooling history. I do have other curricula and books that I use, but I really don't need them, and actually feel that they sometimes bog our day down as interesting as they might be. SOTW is all one needs, and I love it.

ETA: in 2023, read it again. I picked up some biases this time that I didn’t the first time around. 4.5 stars. Very good.

[Stephen Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been very impressed with the way this book presents history. It’s well written, and well distilled. It covers so much within 450ish pages, including illustrations and maps. I like the idea of visiting these historical milestones from all over the world in the same sitting. Sometimes learning particular events alone, leaves you without understanding the greater global and historical context. This book gives us a great cohesive look of all the events, all over the world, in this section of time. Great read for your kids homeschooling.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book was our major accomplishment of the summer. It did so much to expand our worldview and help us see how historical events fit together. We especially enjoyed making a timeline to go along with it. Full review here: http://www.sunlitpages.com/2015/09/th...

[Peter Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really awesome history book ever~! History, from my school days, has been boring subject to me, but this book changed my wrong idea about history as a whole. Reading this book is like listening to the story-telling about very interesting ancient historical events.. I'd like to recommend this book to my little kids while I should move on to the 4th series of this book.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

My children and I enjoy these CDs on a regular basis. The narrator has an excellent voice and the accompanying music really evokes a feeling for the time period. My children have effortlessly absorbed so much from these CDs. They have been a real asset to our homeschool

[Abigail Rasmussen · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Mom did not have "The Story of the World" books when I was in school. However I read all four of them a few years ago and still really enjoyed them. I will definitely be using these books when I am homeschooling my own children someday.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

My kids beg for more every day when we finish our lesson from Bauer's The Story of the World series. Well-written, engaging, and full of information, I have not found a better overview of history for elementary students.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember really learning any history in school. I've always wanted to read a history book that was simple and easy to understand. This fit the bill, maybe because it's written for "the classical child." I learned a lot.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent series. On to book 4!

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books by Susan Wise Bauer are the best way I have found to teach history to my son. I highly recommend these to anyone who has children under 15.

[Jiwoo Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like history. History was always interesting to learn about. It's fascinating that there are events that seems that could only happen in movies, some that are unimaginably tragic, and some we, as humans, should be shameful of. But I still had a question that I couldn't yet find the answer of: why is history so important to know about? Before, I just learned about it because it was simply fun to learn. Nevertheless, after reading this amazing book, I not only realize how valuable history was, I was able to deeply think about history; questioning about the motives of a leader, or the reason why people were so supportive and was crazy about this person, who spoke nonsense. Now, I wasn't just liking history but actually genuinely know the significance—because of its relatedness to the present, and to learn how to cleverly avoid consequences and cope with situations, reflecting on the past, for us today and furthermore the future—and know how to really enjoy it. This book explained very well about the world history, and make readers who doesn't have that much interest on history to actually realize the fun of it. It doesn't explain every parts of history, or doesn't explain in too much detail, but in my opinion, that is why this book is so special; it is very easy to understand, and that is how it to make all the readers to enjoy history. I recommend this to everyone, especially someone who doesn't like world history among all the subjects at school, and struggling to understand them. I can ensure, you will fall in love with this series(especially this one, because this is my favourite among the five), and history.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in the previous volumes of "The Story of the World," Susan Wise Bauer does an excellent job in telling history in a way that is engaging for children. We are studying this book with our 9 year old; but our 5 year old loves listening to it also and retains a lot of information.

I have three qualms with this volume that did not occur in the first volume. To begin with, there are not dates at the end of each chapter as their were in the first volume. This was omitted in the 2nd volume, but in the timeline in the back of the book, it listed which chapter you would find each entry. This was omitted in the 3rd volume, which is unfortunate. I had to check each chapter with the timeline and write in the chapter number and the dates at the end of each chapter so that when we read a chapter, our daughter can write the dates on her timeline. The third thing that was omitted is in the activity book. For each chapter there is a map and directions for the children; in this volume, the answer key in the teacher's edition was omitted. While for the most part, it is easy to tell if the child filled out the map correctly, there are times when an answer key is necessary (for example, what route did the Spanish take to North America?). I don't know why this would have been omitted, but I hope that these omissions are rectified in future editions.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit that the previous books in this series were much better than this book. I felt like most of the content in this book included facts that are commonly known throughout most people, which made the quality of the information sound less innovative. Although the author wrote the book with great attention to detail and language, I believe that it wasn't as effective as I expected it to be. The first and second book had a profusion of descriptions about ancient stories and beliefs, but the third book was closer to the modern world, the environment we are used to hearing and discussing. I acknowledge that it is quite hard to make an educational book have entertaining facts about the early modern times, but I didn't obtain enough satisfaction to give this book 3 stars.

[Kenneth Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent volume in the story of the World Series. This book helpfully covers the period from 1600 through 1850 across the world. If you didn’t pay much attention in history class growing up but now wish you did (I’m guilty) the. This book would be a great single volume to get you caught up to speed on some of the most important events during this time period. The Jim Weiss audiobook version is very well done.

As a side, I’m not sure why the sub title is “history for the classical child”. I am unaware of what makes this history book especially suitable for a child receiving a classical education. It seems the author maybe equates studying history chronologically with part of receiving a classical education.

[The Ink Sipper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Used this along with the activity book and both my children at different ages were able to learn, participate, and keep up. When homeschooling kids in different grades it can really be a blessing to be able to teach from one source book/curriculum, and have such a range of 'bonus' activities that can be divided out appropriately. I also thought this was the most neutral one especially when it came to discussing the religious struggles of early modern time Europe. Absolutely a 5 out of 5 rating for me and my bookshelf.