The Old World and America

THis book is a great book for 5th graders, also as an alternate book to give another side of the history, easy to read and understand and the student is interested.

Concise, informative and interesting. The tests after each chapter are an added bonus. I find it a good source for 2nd and 4th grade history.

learned a lot

excellent

As the author's name and title suggests, this history text book is written by a Catholic priest and it is therefore a Catholic perspective of history that is presented. We are told that "'The Old World and America' tells the story of the Western World from the beginning of mankind - through ancient times, Greek and Roman civilizations, the comming of Christ and founding of the Catholic Church, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the discovery and exploration of America, the 'New World'". The course is aimed at grades 5 - 8, and it should take the average child about 3 years to obtain a good understanding of the material presented. The great advantage of this text book is the clarity with which the information is presented. Each period of history under consideration receives an interesting yet brief (but never skimpy) treatment. The child's interest is stimulated so that the text book can be used as a launching pad for further reading about the particular period of history being studied. My family does not live in America but, with few adaptations, the book is just as relevant to our own country. A universally excellent textbook ideally suited for homeschooling !

My daughter is currently using this text. I like it's concise, yet very informative, accurate, and precise content. It is her main history text for this year offering her a wealth of history from the beginning of Creation to the America's. We supplement from time to time with the Famous Men of the Middle Ages from Memoria Press. She's already had FM of Rome last year and of course the D'Aulaires book of Greek Myths with study guides (again from MP) was where she began her journey. We will go more in depth as time goes on through the years, but because of this book, most of the subjects, occurrences, and/or ideas will not be a stranger to her.

First of all this book was written in the 40's and it reads like it. It asks questions such as "who did slavery benefit" and "why was this violent brutal war good?" It often refers to groups of non white people as "uncivilized" and praises any group of non white European people who assimilated with the white Europeans. It quickly glazes over any wrongs that were committed by the Europeans and trys to spin everything they did (even war crimes) in a positive light. This book also has a heavy focus and lean towards the Catholic history whilst again leaving out anything that would even suggest that they might have been in the wrong at any point historically. Further there are quizzes and activities at at the end of each chapter, with sections such as "questions that make you think" in which often NONE of the provided 'questions' are actually questions. This book should frankly not continue to be printed.