World History and Worldview Studies

Explore the rise and fall of influential ideologies

• Discover in historical context the ideas that have shaped history.
• Learn how key worldviews developed and how they impact the way individuals make sense of reality.
• Understand the consequences of past and present philosophies.
• Accompany your students as they develop a sound, discerning approach to historical and biblical worldviews, and solidify their own beliefs.
• Purchase this package and you'll get free shipping (lower 48), a one-year guarantee and other perks.

Overview of the History

Instructor's Guides

Your History and Bible 520 course includes both a Parent Guide and a Student Guide. This format allows your learners to study independently, but also supports accountability. As your students work through the topics and questions in their guide, you can easily walk alongside, accessing answers, notes and other helpful tools that let you monitor their understanding and progress, discuss issues and become involved to the extent desired.

Your IGs also include more than 30 supplementary articles on wide-ranging subjects, from Taoism to technology. These contain additional insights to help you successfully address challenging topics that are introduced.

World History and Worldview Studies

History tends to focus on names, dates, and events. But what's behind it all? Why do humans behave as we do? What beliefs drive our behaviors?

Every individual has an underlying worldview – the way each person makes sense of reality. Think of a worldview as the tinted glasses each person looks through to see the world.

When you study the beliefs that people hold, you gain insight into why people think and act as they do.

Sonlight's 520 World History and Worldview Studies offers an opportunity to discover, in historical context, the ideas that have shaped history, along with the consequences of these ideas and philosophies. My hope is that it will help students think deeply about issues of personal, social, and ethical significance.

The spine of the History course is the two-volume set Streams of Civilization. Volume 1 covers Ancient History through the early 16th Century. Volume 2 continues on, through the beginning of the 21st Century. Written by Christian authors, these books not only provide a beautiful historical overview of the rise and fall of civilizations, but also offer unique insights about science, music, art, architecture, and pop culture.

Bible and Worldview

Four books lay the foundation for the Bible segment of the course. The Universe Next Door introduces teens to nine prominent worldviews, including deism, existentialism, naturalism and nihilism. Total Truth integrates the history of ideas with their relevance to Christianity. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult gives your students a brilliant introduction to key topics, like reasoning, ultimate reality, and morality. And Good Ideas from Questionable Christians and Outright Pagans explains the ideas of history's principal philosophers: Aristotle, Augustine, Nietzsche, Marx and other well-known thinkers through the ages.

As you together talk through the beliefs that will guide your students throughout their lives, I hope they grow in maturity, so that they will be deeply rooted, prepared to make a positive difference for God's kingdom.

Estimated daily time for World History and Worldview Studie: Student: 1 hr.

Our high school courses are separated by subject to allow customers maximum flexibility. Feel free to buy either the History or the Literature, or both, or to mix-and-match with the History and Literature of other Sonlight courses.

What's in a worldview?

From ancient times to modern days, history has impacted the world in significant ways. Typical approaches to history tend to focus on names, dates and events. But what's behind it all? Why do humans behave as we do? Where do the beliefs that drive our behaviors originate?

Every individual has an underlying worldview. A worldview is simply how we see and make sense of reality. When we understand the ideologies to which we subscribe, consciously or not, we can also gain insight into why we think as we do about truth, faith, science, art, education and many other issues.

We created World History and Worldview Studies to give your 17- and 18-year-old (and advanced 16-year-old) students an understanding of the important ideas and philosophies that have influenced our world through the ages. It will help them think deeply about issues of personal, social and ethical significance. What's more, it will provide a platform for you to discuss together, examine and help solidify the belief system that will guide your children and ultimately serve as a lifelong compass.

36 weeks of History and Bible

World History and Worldview Studies 520 is a 36-week course that provides an expansive look at history and also includes distinctive Christian commentary. Pair it with any upper-level Literature course to create the program that best serves your students.

Spanning ancient history through the start of the 21st century, Streams of Civilization, Volumes 1 and 2, anchor the history portion of the course. Written by Christian authors, these books not only provide a beautiful historical overview, but also weave in unique insights and analysis about science, music, art, architecture, pop culture and other topics of interest throughout.

Four equally engaging books lay the foundation for the Bible segment of the course:

The Universe Next Door introduces your children to nine prominent worldviews, such as deism, existentialism, naturalism and nihilism.

Total Truth integrates the history of ideas with their relevance to Christianity on a practical level.

Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult gives your students a brilliant introduction to key topics: reasoning, ultimate reality, morality and more.

Good Ideas from Questionable Christians and Outright Pagans takes your learners on an illuminating journey where they'll encounter the ideas of history's principal philosophers, including Aristotle, Augustine, Nietzsche, Marx and others.

Combine with other courses

What's the perfect complement for World History and Worldview Studies? Customizable upper-level options leave that decision in your hands. Depending on what works best for your students, you can team this course with one of our 36-week high school Literature courses to create the complete experience (with all associated benefits) you want.

You also have the flexibility to combine 520 with other upper-level courses of your choice, such as Psychology, Economics, College and Career Planning and What Good Is Christianity? as well as Science and Math.

Overview of the Literature

Instructor's Guide

The Literature 530 course can be largely self-taught. Your children are able to chart their own course with help from the Literature and Language Arts Student Guide. The corresponding Parent Guide lets you jump in at any time to assess learning or engage in meaningful discussion.

World Literature

People have always told stories. And the best stories still resonate, even 4000 years later. The Ancients felt the same fears and loves that we do.

This course captures our shared humanity.

Sonlight's 530 Literature is mostly chronological, moving from the ancient poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, where Gilgamesh, after the death of his friend, seeks to avoid death, to the modern play Copenhagen, where Nobel-Prize winning scientists consider the atomic bomb, and how to create (or avoid?) this instrument of death.

There are several foundational texts of World Literature that come up regularly as shared cultural references: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus. Even without reading these, you've probably heard about the Trojan War, or about Odysseus's trials as he tried to reach his wife Penelope, or about the mother-lust of Oedipus, made famous by Freud.

We have, then, a book about war, a book about a journey, and a book about self-knowledge. These themes come up again, with variation, through the rest of the course.

War and enmity go back to the first family, and this course includes Night, a memoir of a Jew in a concentration camp during WWII, and also The Aeneid, Virgil's epic poem on seeking a homeland and the war to conquer it.

"The Journey" is a common theme in literature. Go away to find yourself. (Think of Chicken Little.) This course has several books about the journey: The Epic of Gilgamesh, where the title character goes to find the Babylonian version of Noah to win eternal life; Candide, where the title character is a world-traveling innocent; and Don Quixote, where the title character attempts impossibilities.

And self-knowledge? Crime and Punishment's depressed Raskolnikov needs some resolution after his great sin; Dante's hero has lost his way and travels through hell as he seeks to find his way again; King Lear suffers much before he gains wisdom and understanding.

It's incredible to read books of power and beauty, and to see how different people, in different times, have wrestled with the big questions in life.

Besides covering 4000 years, this course is not confined to Europe only. We do have great works from authors in the European countries of Greece, Italy, England, France, Spain, Romania, and Russia.

But we also have great works from authors in the Asian countries of Iran, China, Japan, and India, as well as ancient Mesopotamia.

We have great works from authors in the African countries of Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa, and Kenya.

And we have great works from the South American countries of Colombia and Argentina.

To read that list excites me! So much richness!

And that's not counting the collection of poetry! Add to the above: New Zealand, Scotland, Germany, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland, Chile, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Wales, and St. Lucia. (With New Zealand and St. Lucia, we've covered all the inhabited continents.)

This is truly "World" Literature.

Besides books dealing with universal themes, and besides works from around the world, this course employs a wide range of literary styles. It includes drama, comedy, tragedy, graphic novel, novella, novel, short story, saga, epic poem, lyric poem, and memoir. Incredible!

The list is a "who's who" of best books of all time. And I could talk at length about the beauty of these books, because they are beautiful. I'd rather you read the books and experience their richness.

After finishing this course, students will not only have had a year of beautiful books and great thoughts, they will also be able to understand common cultural references: Oedipal complexes, quixotic endeavors, Panglossian optimism, and circles of hell, for example.

It's a great, great year.

Language Arts

Fully integrated with the Literature, Language Arts builds on past years and continues to develop literary analysis, creative writing, research and essay skills. The first semester follows a writing manual to help organize thoughts and improve writing craft. The second semester includes writing prompts for papers to put the instruction into practice.

Come spend a year with the best World Literature of all time.

Estimated daily time for World Literature: Student: 75 mins.

Prefer to build your own course of study?

Create a complete course of study by mixing and matching individual high school courses. Visit sonlight.com/high-school to get started.