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4.06.2010

I think I've cracked the code of Susan Wise Bauer's histories of the world


I think I've struck on why I've been excited over Susan Wise Bauer's World History (The History of the Ancient World and The History of the Medieval World, the first two volumes of four): it's because they describe history subtly, without mentioning it, from a Christian - or, kingly - perspective.

The perspective is unique because it's not just above ground level everyday life, but it's above the level of the kings and emperors and caliphs, and is so comfortably, and in an on-the-mark way. It demystifies the highest level of power and life in this realm. Again, subtly.

It is like a history of kings and empires and wars written for kings.

In the sense that a Christian is a king. A prophet, priest, and king.

Secular historians subtly are in awe of the diabolical theocracies of the city of man where the king/emperor/caliph become human deity. Bauer, perhaps not necessarily aware she is doing it, has all these wizards behind the curtain exposed and uses language the way one would tend to use language to describe them as such. Again, though, with no moralizing or any obvious self-conscious sense that this is what she is doing.

I read an outraged review at Amazon where the reviewer was apoplectic that Norton would give an 'English professor' such a stage. "Why do we need this?" he lamented. "Is this necessary?" I sensed the guy was an atheist as I read it, yet Bauer is not overtly Christian with her language, yet this guy could just intuit he was reading something that was heretical in the secular realm. A world history that exposes his idols. He was not happy about the entire enterprise, and I thought it particularly comical that he was attacking Norton, the publisher, for 'allowing' Bauer to write such a world history, or for having published it.

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