I have been meaning to post a short review of Popes, Emperors, and Elephants: The First Thousand Years of Christian Culture for a few months. This is a book that was released in 2021 by a Roman Catholic author named Roy Peachey. I purchased this book when we didn't care for the writing style of A Child's History of the Church by John Mason Neale. The reason why I wanted a book like this is because so many history books on "the Middle Ages" or "Medieval period," especially prior to high school, focus on very simplistic topics such as knights, chivalry, castles, and the feudal system. In reality, Christianity is the centerpiece of the story of the Middle Ages. If you are avoiding discussing Christianity and its affect on civilization at that time, you simply will not learn the truth about history. Even if history curriculum does include Christianity, it will usually be limited to the West and completely ignore Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, the region in which Christianity actually started. Or it will just focus on negative events that took place in the Roman Catholic institution, such as indulgences and the Spanish Inquisition, ignoring the Orthodox Church further down south in Constantipole altogether that didn't participate in these terrible events. When I first learned of the Orthodox Church in my late 20s, I was actually angry that no one had thought to tell me the truth about Christian history in my entire life prior to that. (Most modern Protestants are not taught church history prior to Martin Luther, and if they are, it is often not completely accurate. If we consider the fact that 75% of church history happened prior to Martin Luther being alive, it is sure a lot to leave out. In my late 20s, my sense of history was so distorted as a brainwashed modern American, that I thought the Billy Graham stadium events in the 1960s were "history.")
So with all that to say, did we like Peachey's book and would I recommend it to other Orthodox Christians? Unfortunately, my answer is no. While there is very little content in it that was directly against Orthodox Christian teaching (a few parts about the pope we skipped), the style of writing made it difficult get into the "story" of history. Instead of just providing the history of this time period, Peachey included a lot of details about archaeological evidence in support of different opinions, how we know this, how we might know that, etc. I'd prefer an author to just include that information in the footnotes and instead just say: "historians think...." and get on with the history. Since the Roman Catholic institution is also more entrenched in reason over faith, this definitely came through in how the history was presented and what history was presented. We probably skipped about 35 percent of the book. We definitely enjoyed parts of the book, but all in all, I wish we had read another book instead. My son who generally likes history, really didn't care for the book. After we stopped doing this book, we took a break from history and focused on a geography workbook for about 6 weeks.
We just started a new book called Young People's Story of the Medieval World by Virgil M. Hillyer. While this book isn't perfect, it is the best elementary level book I have found on the Middle Ages. It actually covers this time period with Christianity at the center of the action, while also including some information about happenings in the Middle East and Asia later in the book. Now, I don't agree with all of the commentary in the book, but all things considered, it is probably one of the best available (though hard to find in print).
As far as what I didn't agree with, the author criticized Emperor Justinian for closing down the famous philosophy school at Athens. However, I completely understand and support this decision of Emperor Justinian (who is a Saint in the Orthodox Church.) Christianity is the new "philosophy" that has supplanted and fulfilled all previous philosophies. The philosophy school would have been seen as a distraction. Not to mention that the early saints of the Church were often martyred for not offering sacrifices to the false Greek gods like Zeus. Why would Emperor Justinian want a school open based on the pre-Christian philosophies and beliefs that led to the matrydom of Christians? I totally get that Plato and Socrates had some beautiful ideas that paved the way for the Greeks to receive the Gospel, but I also understand Emperor Justinian wanting to close the school and replace it with the teachings of the Church. Lastly, in this book Hillyer criticizes the Byzantine Empire for preserving the past and not being progressive enough. Certainly, his statement hasn't aged well and many today can see that technological progress is not good for the soul, whereas preservation of Christianity and the Church is indeed.
Well, in this blog post I meant to review just one book, but I ended up reviewing two!
Also to add, I'm a little over piecing together my own curriculum. My oldest son, now 10, is somewhat gifted in his ability to understand and comprehend history. I never wanted to use a boxed curriculum with him and just go over the same story of the pilgrims coming to America, over and over, etc. While I have never stuck with any kind of "Classical" or "Charlotte Mason" style "history cycle", we have certainly covered quite a bit of history over the years. With my second son (now 5), however, I am taking an entirely different approach. Unless something changes, a more traditional history program will be much more appropriate for him. Rather than any history at all, his first grade year will include geography and CLE Grade 1 social studies. He is the kind of child that needs to learn simple, peaceful things about the world for quite a while. Unlike my oldest, who was learning about Genghis Khan at age 5 or 6, my youngest needs a gentle "sunshine and rainbows" approach to history, more in line with the "traditional school" approach that covers American history only until about 5th grade or so. At this point, I am thinking of just going through all of the CLE Social Studies curriculums with him (omitting anything that conflicts with Orthodox Christianity, which is generally not too much with CLE) and calling it a day! (I do know that the third booklet of CLE Social Studies 3 does not work for Orthodox Christians, but the first two booklets are great, if I'm remember correctly.).
Update 3/14/2023 - After getting a sample of Christian Light Education's "Across the Ages" curriculum for Grade 7, I don't feel I want to use any of their history curriculum anymore. I'm also struggling with their black-and-white non-resistance approach and I'm not sure how that would affect a world history curriculum. I have made their curriculum work so far because of course there are times to be peaceful. But we also love St. Constantine the Great and St Alfred the Great. I really appreciate CLE's approach to technology and their anti-humanism outlook, however. I wish someone in America could make a good and true history curriculum, but I guess it may never be. Orthodox Survival Course by Fr. Seraphim Rose comes pretty close for late high school - college age though.
Well, I guess that's the end of my book review blog post! I hope someone find this review helpful!