Story of the World 3: additional British history readings

We use Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World series for our history studies, but I like to give some extra weighting to British history. I should say from the outset that I am not sure whether this is the ‘right’ or ‘best’ way cover history with children. For example, Charlotte Mason taught that children should begin history with the study of their own country, rather than attempting to understand world history, and I think there are some good arguments for this approach. I have attempted (not necessarily successfully) to have the best of both worlds, by focussing primarily on British history, interspersed with key events taking place in the rest of the world.

SOTW3 did feel a little more disjointed than previous volumes, and looking back over the year, I am happiest with the time that we spent studying British history. However, in order to make sense of events in Britain, one needs to have some understanding of the French and American revolutions, slavery, happenings in India, and Napoleon. If we use SOTW3 again, I will probably feel more freedom to skip a few chapters I consider less relevant in order to make space for more British social and industrial history.

The main spine resource I used for British history was Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall. I don’t think that this book is perfect….I have written elsewhere about Marshall’s ‘great man’ view of history. I was raised on the comic history book 1066 and All That which is a parody of Marshall’s works, in which all kings are either ‘a good king’ or ‘a bad king’. I do find myself bristling at some of her sweeping moral judgements on individuals and situations! However, Our Island Story gives a thorough coverage to the main events of British history up to the Victorians, and the narrative is well written. There is very little social history here, you will need to include other resources if you want to study the lives of ordinary people.

One other note is that Our Island Story is very focussed on English history. If you would like to incorporate more Scottish history, you need Scotland’s Story instead.

Here is an overview chart of how I slotted Our Island Story in between the chapters of Story of the World 3, trying to keep everything mostly chronologically aligned.

By following the links in the right hand column, you can see my other book suggestions for each broad time period.

• The Stuarts
• The Georgians

Story of the World 3	Our Island Story
	The Stuarts
1. A World of Empires 2. Protestant Rebellions
3. James, King of Two Countries	Chapter 74 of Our Island Story: The Story of Guy Fawkes
4. Searching for the Northwest Passage 5. Warlords of Japan
6. New Colonies in the New World	Chapter 75 of Our Island Story: The Story of the Mayflower
7. The Spread of Slavery 8. The Middle of the East 9. The Western War 10. Far East of Europe 11. The Moghul Emperors of India
12. Battle, Fire and Plague in England	Chapters 76-82 of Our Island Story: Covenanters, Civil Wars, Commonwealth, Restoration, Plague, Great Fire of London (This is a vast amount of British history, and we camped out here with other resources for quite a while).
13. The Sun King 14. The Rise of Prussia 15. A New World in Conflict	Chapters 83-86 of Our Island Story: James II
16. The West 17. Russia Looks West 18. East and West Collide	Chapters 87-92 of Our Island Story: William and Mary, Queen Anne, George I, the Jacobites
	The Georgians
19. The English in India	Chapter 93 of Our Island Story: The Black Hole of Calcutta
20. The Imperial East 21. Fighting over North America	Chapter 94 of Our Island Story: Canada
22. Revolution! 23. The New Country	Chapter 95 of Our Island Story: George III and the American Revolution
24. Sailing South 25. Revolution Gone Sour 26. Catherine the Great
27. A Changing World (I found this chapter rather disappointing from a British history perspective. Sheep are not sheared in early spring, and p304 on barges and railways frustrated me with over-simplification. Railways replaced canals, not rivers, and they did so because they were fundamentally more efficient).	Chapter 96 of Our Island Story: The Spinning Jenny
28. China and the Rest of the World 29. The Rise of Bonaparte	Chapter 97 of Our Island Story: Trafalgar
30. Freedom in the Caribbean 31. A Different Kind of Rebellion 32. The Opened West 33. The End of Napoleon	Chapter 98 of Our Island Story: Waterloo
34. Freedom for South America 35. Mexican Independence 36. The Slave Trade Ends	Chapters 99-100 of Our Island Story: George IV, William IV and Abolition
37. Troubled Africa 38. American Tragedies 39. China Adrift 40. Mexico and her Neighbour 41. New Zealand and her Rulers 42. The World of Forty-Nine	I have decided to cover Victoria in SOTW4, so stopped at Chapter 100 of OIS.