A Booklist for Understanding Where We Are
History, fiction, non-fiction, and biographies
To understand where one is in the timeline of history, it is necessary to look back. Because history moves in cycles.
History gives us a foundation- a knowledge of the people, choices, wisdom and folly of our forebears.
History gives us a mirror - by knowing our past, we know who we are and can see the ideas and values that have made us and our culture great or weak.
History gives us a spyglass - knowing the past allows us to speculate with a fair amount of accuracy where we are headed and what to expect if there is no change in course.
It was this three-pronged knowledge that led to the writing of one of the greatest documents of all time.
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” The Declaration of Independence.
Friend, we are in the midst of the crumbling (or Fourth Turning) of Western culture. It is time for us to admit where we are because it is to the peril of our children and grandchildren if we do not.
We must be bold and know how to fight the darkness, and we much teach our children to be bold, brave, and to hold convictions as a shield against the evil of our day. We must also prepare them to face certain persecution- it’s already happening across the world in many different ways and degrees but it is here and it will be a hard fight to turn it back.
My hope in sharing these books is to give you a way to educate yourself and your family so that as we fight, and God-willing win, against the culture- there is hope to keep the next Turning at bay for many generations and to give our children the tools to see the things that need to be changed.
This is a dark time, but there have been dark times before. There is much evil, but evil has been here since the Garden. There is also hope and light that will always outshine the dark, no matter how oppressive it seems.
Take heart- no matter what, our Savior has overcome the world and He will come again in glory that we might take our place with Him.
In the meantime, knowledge is an excellent damper of fear and it helps us to be more prepared. You can read our Household Management in Uncertain Times Part 1 and Part 2 for more on preparing your household.
Books for Your Homeschool and Teens
I had one amazing history teacher during my school career and he was my 8th grade history teacher. He took great lengths to help us understand that history is a living part of current time- it flows forward and we cannot know where we are or where we are going without knowing where we’ve been.
Since that time, I have been fascinated by the stories of people and places. When we chose to home educate I knew that I wanted to include the stories that truly bring history to life by exploring the humanity of our shared story.
Not all the books listed here are pictured, but we’ve used them all or they are on our high school shelf that we’ve begun to delve into this year. The goal is for my children to have a wide knowledge base that allows them to use a biblical worldview alongside logic, reason, and discernment to become godly leaders for their own generation. All of these books are beneficial to adults as well.
Also, please note that for this list I have stuck to relatively recent history. There are also many much older examples even as far back as Diocletian so if you have a deep diver (or are one yourself) there are plenty more books you can find!
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Lower Grades
The Tuttle Twins - this entire series is a great, very introductory level collection with many books based on their adult counterparts ie. The Search for Atlas = Atlas Shrugged, The Road to Surfdom= The Road to Serfdom, etc. There are 13 books in this series and it covers economics, government, law, producing vs. consuming, and more. We began using these around age 7/8.
Animal Farm - This classic is told in a way that engages the moral imagination of children and allows them to see the wickedness in collectivism and “othering”. 3rd grade and up.
Breaking Stalin’s Nose - A moving story of a ten-year-old boy's world shattering due to life under Stalinism. 3rd grade and up.
The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler - Bonhoeffer’s story is presented in a graphic novel form. 6th grade and up.
The Red Umbrella - a touching story about Operation Pedro Pan to relocate 14,000 unaccompanied children out of Castro’s Cuba and into safety. 3rd grade and up.
Man of Steel - a biography of Stalin, his rise to power, and his ruthless rule. 6th grade and up.
Twentieth Century Caesar - the story of Mussolini, his rise and fall, and how it affected Italy. 6th grade and up.
Fahrenheit 451 - Books can completely change your outlook as Guy learns in this dystopian tale. 8th grade and up.
Mao’s Last Dancer, young readers edition - This inspiring story of passion, resilience, and a family's love captures the harsh reality of life in Mao's communist China and the exciting world of professional dance. This compelling memoir includes photos documenting Li's extraordinary life. 7th grade and up.
Upper Grades
How Should We then Live - an extraordinary guide to living in our post-Christian society written by theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer. The video series he recorded is well worth adding to your study. Our boys used the Compass Classroom study with the book for their Trail Life Worthy Life studies in the Adventurer group. 12 and up.
The Screwtape Letters - a C.S. Lewis classic that uses Screwtape, a demon, and his letters to his nephew to show how many different ways we can be pushed towards unrighteousness. 13 and up.
I Must Betray You - Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe. 13 and up.
The Lion of Poland: The Story of Paderewski - The book tells the story of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Polish pianist and composer who became a world-renowned musician and later served as the Prime Minister of Poland. Ages 12 and up, our preferred edition is printed by Bethlehem Books.
The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Former economic hit man John Perkins shares new details about the ways he and others cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Then he reveals how the deadly EHM cancer he helped create has spread far more widely and deeply than ever in the US and everywhere else—to become the dominant system of business, government, and society today. Finally, he gives an insider view of what we each can do to change it. 11th grade and up, part of our Economics coursework.
Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War - A fascinating account of the Spanish Civil War from a young British law student who was so moved by the Nationalists’ fight against communism that he joined the fighting. 11th grade and up.
The Road to Serfdom - Originally published in 1944 The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. 11th grade and up, part of our Economics coursework.
The Moth in the Iron Lung - a fascinating biography of this horrible paralytic disease, polio, where it came from, and why it disappeared in the 1950s. If you’ve never explored the polio story beyond the tales of crippled children and iron lungs, this book will be sure to surprise. 11th grade and up. Part of our health coursework.
Sophie Scholl and the White Rose - the gripping true story of five Munich university students who set up an underground resistance movement in World War II. 10th grade and up.
1984 - George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever. 10th grade and up.
Dumbing Us Down - After over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning "disabilities" are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffected. Thirty years of teaching in the public school system led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is to blame, accomplishing little but to teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. 11th grade and up.
Atlas Shrugged - A thrilling story that contrasts the virtues of innovation and production with the vices of mindless consumerism and bureaucracy through the lives of remarkable people- both heroes and villains, and often a bit of both. Ages 16+, you can find the free Penguin groups teachers guide here.
Brave New World - this classic dystopian novel, written in 1932, shows the evils of a society that places technology and pharmaceuticals over human connection and innovation. The story is incredibly prescient- but not for everyone. Ages 16 and up, I recommend reading the reviews on Common Sense Media to see if your teens are mature enough to understand the topics and that it was written as a warning.
Yes, this is a lofty list, but I do recommend making shelf space and having them in hard copy- if you’ve read them you’ll know why.
Books for Our Moment in History - How We Got Here and Where We are Headed
As the parent, it’s important for us to have a solid knowledge base for what we are teaching. While you will certainly gain much from the list above for your students, diving in a bit deeper is good for your mind and understanding, too.
These books comprise a wide array of topics, memoirs, biographies, and non-fiction from lots of different worldviews. But to truly understand our moment in history we need to see how all the working parts moved together to make the machine we now have to deal with.
Spymaster - Oleg Kalugin oversaw the work of American spies, matched wits with the CIA, and became one of the youngest generals in KGB history. Even so, he grew increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet system. In 1990, he went public, exposing the intelligence agency's shadowy methods.
The Long Slide - With his signature wit and 20/20 hindsight, Tucker Carlson investigates in this patriotic and memorable collection a question on all of our minds: Has America really changed that much in recent decades? The answer is, unequivocally, yes.
The Authoritarian Moment - Ben Shapiro looks at everything from pop culture to the Frankfurt school, social media to the Founding Fathers, to explain the origins of our turn to tyranny, and why so many seem blind to it.
Into the Lion’s Mouth - James Bond has nothing on Dusko Popov. A double agent for the Abwehr, MI5 and MI6, and the FBI during World War II, Popov seduced numerous women, spoke five languages, and was a crack shot, all while maintaining his cover as a Yugoslavian diplomat… (Definitely not a book for your teens!)
The Antifa - In The Antifa, Posobiec uncovers the secret history of this radical anarchist group, while integrating his personal encounters with some of its most hardcore and violent members. While until recently few Americans were aware of Antifa's existence, it is part of a violent revolutionary tradition that dates back more than a hundred years.
Always with Honor - Leading the anti-communist “White” forces against the new “Red” army to the end was Pyotr Wrangel, a career cavalry officer who fought with distinction in the Russo-Japanese War and World War i, found himself at the center of various intrigues in the early stages of the Russian Revolution.
Live Not by Lies - In Live Not By Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm sounded by the brave men and women who fought totalitarianism. He explains how the totalitarianism facing us today is based less on overt violence and more on psychological manipulation and offers practical advice for how to identify and resist totalitarianism in our time.
The Fourth Turning - With blazing originality, The Fourth Turning illuminates the past, explains the present, and reimagines the future. Most remarkably, it offers an utterly persuasive prophecy about how America’s past will predict what comes next.
The Watchmaker’s Daughter - the remarkable and inspiring life story of Corrie ten Boom—a groundbreaking, female Dutch watchmaker, whose family unselfishly transformed their house into a hiding place straight out of a spy novel to shelter Jews and refugees from the Nazis during Gestapo raids. Even though the Nazis knew what the ten Booms were up to, they were never able to find those sheltered within the house when they raided it.
Code Name Lise - In Code Name: Lise, Larry Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love—of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors and degradations.
Abel - On 10 February 1962, Gary Powers, the American pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, was brought to Berlin's Glienicke Bridge, where he was to take part in the most famous prisoner exchange in history. The man Powers was traded for was one Colonel Rudolf Abel, a cover name for KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, one of the most extraordinary characters in the history of the Cold War.
Ordinary Men - Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
The Gulag Archipelago - Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society.
The Naked Communist - unveils the covert tactics employed by communist regimes to subvert and infiltrate societies, offering readers a deep dive into the art of ideological warfare through exploring the Cold War.
The Plutonium Files - traces the behind-the-scenes story of an extraordinary fifty-year cover-up. It illuminates a shadowy chapter in this country's history and gives eloquent voice to the men and women who paid for our atomic energy discoveries with their health--and sometimes their lives.
Education, Christianity, and the State - Machen appeared before a Joint Committee of Congress in 1926 to testify in opposition to a federal Department of Education. His foresight, and his defense of Christian schools, is more needed today than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. These essays and speeches offer a solid defense of Christian education.
Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare - In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler’s war machine, through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it.
Fault Lines - A famed preacher, professor, and cultural anthropologist reveals the cancer of woke theology that has permeated seminaries and that threatens the evangelical church itself. Plus a call to all Christian congregations to eschew the lure of critical theory and hold to the path of an individual relationship with God.
Who Killed the American Family? - The American family used to be the fundamental institution of our stable, liberty-loving, and very successful society. It is the essential building block of a free society with limited government. In the last hundred years, the American family has been attacked, debased, maligned, slandered, and vilified by every facet of society. No family is safe from the official busybodies. At issue is a rebellion against any sort of moral code.
Christianity and Liberalism - In his classic defense, Machen clarifies the basic understanding of the most fundamental Christian beliefs: doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Christ, Salvation, and the Church.
Understanding the Constitution - Ten Things Every Citizen Should Know About the Supreme Law of the LandThe United States Constitution is the blueprint by which our nation's government is intended to operate. Yet most Christians, indeed, most citizens, have no idea what the Constitution actually says. This book provides the basis for understanding the Constitution and the Bible's role in its development.
The Pastor’s Wife - Sabina Wurmbrand's true story of her efforts to get her husband released, her subsequent imprisonment for her public faith witness for over two years in labor camps and, above all, her unceasing efforts to help build a Christian underground church in the shadow of Communist repression.
Bonhoeffer - As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe, a small number of dissidents and saboteurs worked to dismantle the Third Reich from the inside. One of these was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and author.
What books would you add to this list?