World History
Date and Time: Mondays, 10:40am - 12:10pm Grade level: 9th through 12th, Honors track available Cost: $95/month for 9 months, due at the first of each month (Aug. 1st through April 1st) plus a one time $25 supply fee. Payments should be made to Lucid Education, and payments can be made online at https://derekowens.com/paynow1.php. 10% off for semester or full year payment in advance. (Late fee $5; 10% discount for full semester payment) Document Package, Primary Sources & Scholarly Articles will serve as the course text Course Description: This World History survey course, taught from a Judeo-Christian perspective, will examine the history of mankind from Creation through the present day. Students will be challenged to see that history is manifestly not simply a random series of events (what the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius described in his Meditations as nothing but “smoke and ashes”), but instead history is His Story, God as Alpha and Omega acting eternally as described in the Bible. Throughout the course there will be a strong emphasis on primary source material so that, for example as seen below, when discussing the history of the early Church instead of only reading what historians have written over time (though important) the Book of Acts will be the most important resource under examination. When U.S. President Harry Truman in World War II had to decide whether to use the Atomic Bomb (rather than a conventional invasion of mainland Japan by American troops) to end the war in Victory it is important to read what he thought and wrote at the time in several diary accounts leading up to the decision as another example much later in history. There will of course, I pray, be many high points of interest in the course for everyone. Some of the major Fall Semester highlights include the following: ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China, with a special focus on ancient Israel; Greek Civilization; Macedon and Alexander the Great; the rise and fall of Roman Civilization from Republic to Empire; Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection, with a focus on the Gospels; the Rise of Christianity and the growth of the Church with an emphasis on the triumph of the early Christians over intense persecution with a focus on Acts; the first Christian Emperor, Constantine; Christian Missionaries; the Byzantine East; the rise and containment of Islam; India; China; the Mongols; Japan; the Germanic tribes; Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance; the Vikings; the Vitality of the Middle Ages, including the Medieval Church and the origins of the modern state; the Miracle of Joan of Arc leading France to ultimate triumph in the Hundred Years’ War ; the Black Death; Mayan and Aztec Civilization; Discoverer of America and Admiral of the Ocean Sea--Christopher Columbus. With a solid foundation upon which to build from Fall semester, some of the major Spring Semester highlights include the following: a European “Renaissance” in the High Middle Ages, including the Reformation of the Church with a return to the Bible as the sole authority for Christians, the central teaching of the reformers, Sola Scriptura, “by Scripture alone;” remarkable works of Art and Music; the British Empire; the Great Awakenings in England and America; America and Independence; France and Napoleon; Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche and the rise of materialism; American Civil War and Industrialization, American Slavery Abolished, and the American Union Preserved; aircraft, automobiles, and other inventions; the United States becomes a World Power; America and the Great War; Moslem Turkey and the Armenian Genocide; the rise of Totalitarianism; a Communist Soviet Russia and National Socialist Germany; a Second World War; America becomes the sole Atomic Power; the defeat of Germany and Japan; the Holocaust; Modern Israel is born; the Soviet Union occupies Eastern Europe; Communism in China; the Korean and Vietnam Wars; America on the Moon; Modern Art, Popular Music, and C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity in an Atomic Age; Computers and Information; President Reagan Wins the Cold War; European Union; the rise of world-wide terrorism; a World Split Apart, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; Christianity continues to grow and spread in the world as Jesus Remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. |
