I have heard a number of people talk about the Story of the Wold book and everyone has said it was a fantastic History resource but we just never went that route when the kids were younger. Until recently, over the past 2 months or so my daughter and I have been discussing doing Ancient History as one of her GSCE subjects and even though we are still waiting another year before we make final decisions about subjects she really wants to do Ancient History and I actually think it would be a good subject for her. So we have decided that next year (academic year starting in Sep) we are going to create our own Ancient History curriculum for her Year 9 and do a sort of introduction to Ancient History. Our thought are we are going to create our own timeline working our significant events and we are also going to spend some time going through some general Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman History (including looking at the Greek and Roman Mythology). Now that all sounds good but truth be told I do not know that much about Ancient History and how it all fits together – I am more of a History from the Anglo-Saxons times onwards person. And then a friend suggested I borrow her Story of World Vol 1 to read.

I have been so impressed. This book is brilliant. The authors writing style is incredibly easy to read and understand, it is written like a long story and it flows so easily that I really enjoyed reading it. Yes it is a simplified version of that time, I would say it suits primary aged History but it does actually cover a lot. And it puts all the events into order and explains quite a bit. The author also includes some examples of Ancient Myths and legends from that time, which I really enjoyed reading. And at the back there is a great timeline.

One of the things that I like about this book is that it includes Ancient Histories from the whole world, so not only European. And it includes how biblical history slots in (something which I really wanted to figure out was how we could weave some of the Old Testament into the Ancient History timeline and this book does it effortlessly).

I was so impressed with the book that I bought us our own copy and we are going to use it as our starting point. Our idea is that my daughter is going to read it and then create her own summaries of the events discussed in the book. It will be her high level introduction to that period. And once we have created a nice summary of the order of events we will go back and focus on individual cultures and events in more detail.

I bought our copy directly from amazon The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor Volume 1: 0.

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