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New Features and Activity:    

Our mid-summer has been spent attending to a great many domestic projects that had been put off for months while we prepared for conference season. We are a home-based business, and sometimes need to deal with the fact that our home, as well as our business, requires attention.

Nevertheless, such an obsessive hobby as History, cannot be put off entirely, so we have a good collection of new American History books on offer. These include the last few volumes of James Otis's excellent colonial children series, and additional volumes from some of our favorite authors including Sabin, Guerber, Abbott, and Marshall. We have also included the first volume in Cyrus Townsend Brady's well known American Fights and Fighters series, and hope to add several more books to the series by year's end.

Benjamin of Ohio     by James Otis
Seth of Colorado     by James Otis
Antione of Oregon     by James Otis
Uncle Tom's Cabin     by H. E. Marshall
With Lieutenant Pike     by Edwin Sabin
Builders of Our Country: I     by Gertrude Southworth
Conquest of the Old Northwest     by James Baldwin
South American Fights and Fighters     by Cyrus T. Brady
Miles Standish     by John S. C. Abbott
King Philip     by John S. C. Abbott
Harriet Beecher Stowe     by Ruth Brown MacArthur
Story of the English     by Helene Guerber

We fielded a great many questions about our Compact Libraries while attending conferences. Most of these were answered in person, but we have selected a few to address in this column. Our first question is based on conversations with several different attendees, and answers a number of inquiries regarding printer technology. To those users who desire to print hard copies of our books, the subject of printers is of great importance. In order to address the issue thoroughly we have written a printer guide, available under our "More About" menu. We strongly urge anyone who is contemplating a printer purchase in the near future to consider the information provided in this article.

I am interested in your Compact Libraries, but I don't think it is feasible to actually print out an entire book on my printer. I don't have access to an office printer; the one I have can only print a few pages per minute. What do you recommend for people who have slow printers.

 —Conference Attendee(s)

The difference in enthusiasm for our Compact Libraries varies dramatically between users who have access to high performance printers, and those who don't. Many homeschoolers get by using only a low cost ink-jet printer. Others have upgraded to an "all-in-one" printing system which gives them the ability to copy, scan, and fax pages, but is still too slow to be used for large printing jobs. The only really good solution for high volume printing jobs is a laser printer, but they tend to be more expensive than ink-jets and so are less frequently purchased for home use. We are, however, strong advocates of laser printing technology, and believe that as more people come to understand their important advantages, they will become increasingly common among home schoolers.

We included an information page about printing and binding in our compact libraries, but this is not sufficient. Our users need information up front about the relative advantages of laser printers vs. ink jet printers. We have therefore re-written our treatise on home printers, and included it in our "More About" Menu under Printer Options. Printing technology is complicated and many of the most important costs—such as the price of ink-cartridges—are hidden. The good news is, there is a broad selection of printers to choose from and the prices are continually dropping. The bad news is, it is very difficult to tell if you are getting a good deal, given the confusing selection of features, heavily discounted prices, and wide variation in ink-cartridge prices.

We would like to summarize the information in the article here, but there are a great many factors that should be considered when deciding whether to upgrade to a laser printer. It is difficult to cover all of the issues even superficially in a few paragraphs, so we strongly recommend you review the whole article, which can be found here. We do believe, however, that the cost of a good quality laser printer appropriate for home use is now low enough that it should be attractive to many homeschoolers. Only three years ago, it was impossible to purchase a reliable, high yield (large ink cartridge) laser printer for less than about $300, but now you might find one on sale for less than $100. We believe as more people educate themselves about printing options, laser printers will become increasingly popular, and the lack of high performance printers will no longer be an obstacle to self-publishing.

New Features and Activity:    

Spring is Homeschool Conferences season, and Heritage History attended seven regional conventions in the last few months. It was a great experience meeting hundreds of homeschooling families, and thanks to all of you who took the time to fill out our 2009 survey either in person or on line. Your feedback and comments are much appreciated.

The heavy conference schedule, however, stifled our creativity somewhat, so there are no new features this month—only a great many more books on American History. These books fall into a number of categories—the first of which is presidents and the constitution. The books that we have pertaining to federal government include:

True Stories of Our Presidents     by Charles Morris
Story of Our Constitution     by Eva March Tappan
Theodore Roosevelt     by J. Walker McSpadden
Thomas Jefferson     by J. Walker McSpadden
Four American Patriots     by Alma Holman Burton

For novice history readers we have added five more volumes to the Colonial Children series by James Otis. The protagonist of each book is a youngster who is one of the earliest American settlers of a region or colony. Their first person accounts abound with fascinating details about the daily lives of the pioneers, and touch on the major historical incidents of each region. The books are lavishly illustrated and simple enough to be enjoyed by grammar school students. There are twelve books altogether in the series and we plan on completing the whole set by summer's end.

Hannah of Kentucky     by James Otis
Mary of Plymouth     by James Otis
Martha of California     by James Otis
Philip of Texas     by James Otis
Calvert of Maryland     by James Otis

We have completed several American Negro history books in the last few months, and will add several more to our collection by the end of the year. These offerings include an autobiography of Booker T. Washington, a comprehensive history of American Negroes by Benjamin Brawly, and Joel Chandler Harris's delightful classic, Uncle Remus.

Up from Slavery     by Booker T. Washington
Short History of the American Negro     by Benjamin Brawley
Negro and the Nation     by George S. Merriam
Uncle Remus—Songs and Sayings     by Joel Chandler Harris

Helene Guerber is one of our favorite authors—her books make excellent "core" or comprehensive histories for middle school aged children. Her wonderful books on Greek and Roman history have been featured on this website several years, and are included in our Greek and Roman Collection. In addition to completing our two book series on American history, we have also finished work on the first volume of her French history series, and intend to complete the entire collection of Guerber Historical Readers by year's end.

Story of Old France     by Helene Guerber
Story of the Thirteen Colonies     by Helene Guerber
Story of the Great Republic     by Helene Guerber

Most of the other books we have completed in the last few months are companion books to existing series.

Our Little Carthaginian cousin   of the Little Cousins series.
Marco Polo    of George Towle's Heroes of Exploration series.
History of Russia   by Nathan Dole, of the Young Folk's History series. American Life and Adventure,   a companion to Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston

In addition to updating American history books, over the last few months, we fielded a good number of questions at the Homeschool Conferences we attended. Answers to several of them will be provided in next month's issue of Heritage History.

I just love some of the books on this site, but my kids aren't really old enough to read them themselves. Do you have anything easy enough for a child reading at a second grade level? When will your audio books be ready?

 —Michelle R., MT

Most second graders are still novice readers, and weary after reading more than a few pages of uninterrupted text by themselves. Although a child of that age may be able to enjoy a great many of the stories on our website if they are read aloud, younger grammar school students are not likely to understand their historical significance or chronology. For this reason, if reading aloud is a possibility, we recommend legends, hero-stories, and engaging historical anecdotes rather than full length comprehensive histories. We do intend to offer audio books along these lines, which may be helpful to families with younger children, but it will likely be several years before we have a broad selection. Our first audio books should be available by later this year.

The books in our library that are most appropriate for younger students tend to be legends, mythology, historical fiction, and adapted literature, rather than chronological history. Most of the books in our Young Readers Collection are of these child-friendly genres. Grammar school is a perfect time for children to be introduced to Aesop, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Siegfried, Roland, and dozens of other myths and legends. They are all important historically and youngsters love them.

At Heritage History, our first ambition is to make history a fun and easy subject, rather than one a student has to struggle with, and for this reason we don't recommend "challenging" youngsters who do not read well with history assignments above their reading level. That said, there are a few books on our website that are written at second or third grade reading level. Baldwin's Fifty Famous Stories, or Eggleston's Great Americans, for example, were written to tell engaging stories from history in short chapters, suitable for younger grammar school students. They are excellent books, but if they are used as historical readers, it is important to bear in mind that a child struggling to sound out words and read whole phrases, may not necessarily retain a great deal of content. If you delay introducing such books until your student can already read them fairly easily, they will certainly enjoy them more and learn more actual history. History is a delightful subject but there is no real benefit, and some risk in pushing it before a student is prepared to enjoy it.

We are aware that some students learn to read very early, and are voracious readers by second grade. Parents of such children are free to ignore our warnings of pushing history too soon, and make use of our libraries as soon as their children are ready for them. But we think it is inadvisable to set up this ideal as a norm. History is a subject that students of average ability can enjoy and do very well at. Setting unattainable goals is not constructive for most students. Learning history is not a race, it is a lifetime adventure.

Do you know of any books about Ancient History that just stick to the real history, and don't have chapters on Mythology? All of the books I've looked at mix up mythology with history.

 —Linda G., WA

We imagine that your problem is not with general Ancient History, but rather, with Greek History in particular. Early Roman history, for example, involves some well-known legends, but mythology plays a less active role in traditional Roman history than it does in Greek History. Furthermore, the Greek Gods and heroes are notorious for bad behavior, and for parents who are concerned about protecting their children from such influences, this is sometimes a serious concern.

Nevertheless, as regards to histories of Ancient Greece, the short answer to your question is no. We have read dozens of books about Greek history, and all of those which are written at an introductory level incorporate the stories of mythology. Only advanced histories that focus on specific historical incidents bypass a discussion of mythology—and this is because they assume their readers are already familiar with the subject. The fact is, the Greek pagan religion played a vital role in the civilization of Ancient Greece, and the history of the Greeks cannot be understood without reference to it, any more than the history of Europe can be understood without reference to the Christian religion.

That said, we believe that all of the histories of Greece we recommend, especially for younger children are not objectionable in the same sense that modern books on a similar subject may be. They all make a clear distinction between mythology and history, and all uphold traditional Judeo-Christian morality as a norm. Traditional writers of juvenile history were far more protective of children's innocence than are modern writers, and this is evident throughout our entire, "G-rated" history library. There is much that is objectionable to protective parents, not only in Greek mythology, but in a great deal of "real" history. Yet "children's versions" of most tales can be told discretely, and in good taste. The virtues of sheltering children for the harsher aspects of human nature are utterly lost on the modern world, yet it was second nature to the traditional authors that we recommend. We have not gone to great lengths to "screen" inappropriate material. The standards of early 20th century children's history were such that little screening is necessary.

We at Heritage History are very strong advocates of the value of the study of Ancient Greece, and lament the terrible decline in knowledge of the classical world. We learned next to nothing about Ancient History in sixteen years of schooling, and did not understand the unique value in studying it until we rediscovered classical history in our early years of homeschooling. We now have an enormously high regard for the Ancients, and fully comprehend why the Greeks have rightly been considered the founders of Western Civilization. It is impossible to communicate to young students, (or even to poorly educated adults), the full significance of the Greek civilization and we do not advocate doing so. The real value in the study of Greek for novice history readers is in the romantic stories that can be told of these fascinating people. The stories of the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars are some of the most riveting battle narratives in all history. We do not deny the objectionable practices of the Greeks, but their enormous contributions to our western ideas of government, art, science, drama, and literature make the Greeks an enormously valuable field of study, mythology and all.

New Features and Activity:    

Greetings. Last month we launched a History Lovers' page for those Heritage History users who are willing to contribute a little time to this website. Thanks for all of those who took our survey. This month we begin soliciting short reader book reviews, and we welcome contributions from students and young people, as well as those from homeschooling parents and teachers. The book reviews themselves will not be displayed on our website until later in the summer, but we would like to start collecting them, and encouraging contributions sooner than later.

On the book front, we spent most of our time beefing up our American History collection. In addition to a few more Indian/Frontier books we took a swing at the age of invention. The most outstanding book in this catagory was Meadowcroft's Boys' Life of Edison. This fascinating biography was written by a close associate of Edison and contains many autobiographical accounts. Much attention is given to Edison's early life and the author paints a picture of a young man whose resourcefulness and entreprenurial tendencies were apparent from a young age. The magnitude and diversity of Edisons contributions to American industry is simply astounding. His life story covers many of the most important inventions in American history, but is also rich in anecdote and humor since Edison's ceaseless activities led to inevitable conflicts and adventures. This book will likely emerge as one of our all time favorites  for intermediate readers.

Famous Missions of California     by William H. Hudson
Four American Inventors     by Frances Perry
Four American Indians     by Frances Perry
Twentieth Century Inventions     by Charles Gibson
Trails of the Pathfinders     by George Bird Grinnell
Heroes of Progress in America     by Charles Morris
Boys' Life of Edison     by William Meadowcroft
Twelve Naval Captains     by Molly Eliot Seawell
Our Little Florentine cousin     by Clara Vostrovsky Winlow

My family is using the Story of the World series. What do you think of this for a core history curriculum.

 —Conference Attendee

We are familiar with the Story of the World series and think it is a fine core curriculum for world history, but in general, we do not advocate one particular curriculum over another. Different families have different preferences, so if your family enjoys the curriculum, and your students are inspired to read more history on their own, then it is a success. Our object in creating the Heritage History library was not to promote one particular approach to learning history, but rather, to offer our resources as a supplement a wide variety of history curriculums. We are less concerned about whether a particular curriculum covers all of the "important points", or promotes a particular worldview, than whether it fosters an abiding interest in history.

We do not believe, however, that any single author, or any single text-book, should be a student's sole source of historical information. Partly this is because we believe students should be exposed to more than one viewpoint, but mostly it is because we believe that the stories of history are best retained when they are read more than once. Reading the same book twice can be a chore, but reading similar material from different authors is usually fairly interesting. Most good core history curriculums, including Story of the World do encourage supplemental reading. The question is, when you say you are "using" Story of the World, does this mean that you are reading books from its supplemental reading list as well, or sticking only with the core-lessons?

In many ways we are philosophically in sync with the Story of the World approach. We are obviously dedicated to the traditional approach of learning history through stories. Where we differ is in the value we place on various non-reading activities, such as "questions and answers", "tests", and "activities". Our approach to learning history is to read, read, read, and then read some more, rather than spending a great deal of time doing supplementary excercises. We realize however, that some students do enjoy tests and reviews, so if your family enjoys history related activities and worksheets, then by all means, you should continue to use them. If, however, your students would prefer more reading and less review, you might consider ratcheting up the "supplemental reading" and deep-sixing the busy-work.

Do you have any G. A. Henty Books on your website? I'm looking for The Young Carthaginian and don't see it.

 —Anna H., WA

How embarrassing! We are not only missing the book you're looking for; we don't currently have any G. A. Henty, an extremely well-known author of historical novels. But before explaining the reason for this ommission, allow us to recommend an alternative that we do have available. The Young Carthaginian traces the adventures of a young soldier during the second Punic War. Our biography of Hannibal written by Jacob Abbott, covers much of the same material and is wonderfully accessible—it is actually shorter, than The Young Carthaginian, and just as engaging. Any student who enjoys Henty is likely to enjoy the whole Abbott series of historical biographies. The Makers of History collection is exceptionally good, and most volumes are so exciting they read as if they were novels instead of straight history.

The reason for the scarcity of historical novels on our site is mainly logistical. There are over 100 Henty titles alone, and hundreds more from dozens of equally excellent writers. Most serious works of historical fiction written for young adults are over 350 pages of small print; that is, they are substantial works which would take a relatively long time to process. Were we to take up the Henty titles in all ernest, it would overwhelm us for months. Finally, many G. A. Henty novels are already back in print and are often available at public libraries. Most of the books we choose to put on our site, on the other hand, are out-of-print and unavailable elsewhere.

These are intended to be explanations rather than excuses. Given the popularity of Henty's books, we will likely reproduce many of them in the future, but probably not in the near term. We believe true stories from history, when well-told, are interesting enough to engage young people, and are a higher priority for us than fiction. Until such time as we have digitized and organized a majority of the genuine histories we have available, we will include historical fiction only sporadically.

New Features and Activity:    

We survived our first conference as vendors this month. Thanks to all of you who visited our booth at the Inland Northwest Homeschool Conference. For a list of upcoming conferences that we plan to attend, see the March update.

In order to provide a better way to get feedback from users of Heritage History, we have created a Get Involved page for History lovers. We have plans in the future to provide for user book reviews and other ways of providing feedback, but for now we have simply created a way for users to let us know which parts of the web page they find most useful and what types of books they would like to see in the future. If you haven't visited the page yet, please consider answering a few questions to help us make Heritage History as useful as possible.

New books for April may include several more Cousins from Long Ago volumes, several more American frontier stories, and some Christian Histories. We are building up our collections from two of the most renowned juvenile history writers of the American west, Edwin Sabin and James Willard Schultz. Included in this months books are their renditions of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Gold Rush in California.

Bird Woman     by James Willard Schultz
Opening the West with Lewis and Clark     by Edwin Sabin
Gold Cache     by James Willard Schultz
Gold Seeker's of '49     by Edwin Sabin
Stories of Saints and Martyers     by Jetta Wolff
Stories from German History     by Florence Aston
Our Little Roman cousin     by Julia Darrow Cowles
Our Little Spartan cousin     by Julia Darrow Cowles
Martin Luther     by Elsie Singmaster

I just read the book War Inventions and How they Were Invented. Even though it was written around the time of World War I, it still explained a lot of stuff really well. Do you have any more books like it?

 —David (age 14), WA

We also found the book War Inventions, by Charles Gibson, to be exceptionally interesting. It was written shortly after World War I and explains a great many of the technologies that made that war vastly more destructive of human life than any in history up to that point. We highly-recommended it for anyone who seeks to understand the progression of 20th century warfare.

The other really excellent book we currently have on the subject of invention, is Great Inventors by Frank Bachman. Like Gibson, Bachman is a first rate story teller and many of the inventions he covers are just fascinating. While Gibbons spends most of his effort explaining the science behind the inventions themselves, Bachman dedicates more time to telling the stories of the inventors. We thought his chapter on Gutenberg was particularly outstanding. While it is commonly known that Gutenberg invented moveable type, the inspiration itself was really only a small part of his story. The genius of Gutenberg was not the mere concept, but the life-long commitment to solving dozens of difficult problems involved in actually getting the idea to work. It is one of the most fascinating stories of invention ever told, and illustrates the long road between concept and realization that is characteristic of so many great inventors.

Although these two are the only invention-themed books that we currently have online, we do have five or six other books with similar themes on hand that have not yet been converted to eBook format. We will be happy to look them over and put a few of the best ones in "the queue". Check back in two or three months for more invention stories on Heritage History. Thanks again for your interest, and tell your friends about us.

You seem to have a lot of the same books on your website as The Baldwin Project at mainlesson.com. Did you get permission to copy those books from that website or did you create them yourself?

 —INWH Conference Attendee

The relationship between Heritage History and the Baldwin Project is explained elsewhere on the website, but because we have been asked this questions several times, it is probably a good idea to set the record straight. We do not want people to think that we took these books from the Baldwin Project without authorization. The fact is, most of them were created by the volunteers associated with Heritage History in the first place. The truth is as follows:

Lisa Ripperton started the Baldwin Online Children's Project Website (a.k.a mainlesson.com) in 1999 and until 2003 was solely responsible for the content. In January 2004 we began contributing books to that site. We had been collecting Juvenile history books for many years and were happy to have a way to share them online. During the first year we contributed over 30 books—more than all the rest of the Baldwin volunteers put together. At that point Lisa gave us access to the central databases, and provided us with the tools we needed to update books directly to the website. Between 2004 and 2007 we were responsible for producing about two-thirds of the Baldwin Project's content. Over a four year period we produced over 260 books for the Baldwin Project, about 90% of which were historical in nature.

Eventually Lisa began to reformat some of the Baldwin Project's texts to create print-on-demand books, and by 2006 had started Yesterday's Classics, a publishing company for out-of-print children's books. For about a year we worked together as a team supporting both the mainlesson website and the Yesterday's Classics book company. Over time, however, it became clear that our interests were diverging. Lisa's priority was developing the publishing end of things, while we were more interested in developing the web-based, e-text side of things. After long consideration, we decided that it would be more productive to go our separate ways and work independently than it would be to continue in a partnership. Part of the problem was logistics—we were on opposite sides of the country—but part was just a desire to work independently, and spare ourselves the difficulty of complicated negotiations.

It took almost a year to develop our own website, and until that time we continued to contribute to mainlesson. By early 2008 the Heritage History website was complete. At that time we decided to share all of the material that had been developed by either of us up until January 2008. The books on Heritage History that originated on the Baldwin Project are clearly marked, and those on the Baldwin Project that were done by Heritage Volunteers are indicated in the "About This Text" section.

We are very grateful to Lisa for helping us get started in this project, and are are happy to promote many of the Yesterday's Classics Books, as well as our own Compact Libraries. We believe that both high-quality print versions of these books and low-cost electronic versions are important to have available. We are all still dedicated to our original mission of popularizing the great children's literature of the past—we are just pursuing the same ends independently.

More information about how the Heritage History website came about can be found on our About Heritage page.

New Features and Activity:    

We kick off our conference season this month at our local venue, the Inland Northwest Homeschool Conference, on March 27-28 in Spokane Valley, where "Mrs. Heritage" will give a workshop entitled "Doit-yourself Liberal Arts: Teaching History and Literature at Home". Our complete conference schedule for 2009 is listed below. Heritage History will have a vendor display at each of the following Homeschool conferences and we will be available to answer any questions in person. Please come and visit.

Date 2009	Conference	Location
Mar 27-28	Inland Northwest Homeschoolers	Spokane Valley, WA
Apr 24-25	Christian Heritage Homeschool	Redmond, WA
May 1-2	Northwest Catholic Family	Tukwila, WA
May 15-16	Montana Home Educators	Kalispell, MT
June 12-13	Oregon Christian Home Education	Portland, OR
June 19-20	Washington Homeschool Organization	Puyallup, WA

For the next few months we'll be completing some of the titles we have pending for our youngest readers, trying to fill out our collection of American Frontier/American Indian books, and, as always, producing assorted volumes of general interest.

New books for March include five new volumes from the Cousin of Long Ago series, two new volumes from the Sweetser Boys and Girls series, a single volume from the Sabin Trail Blazers Historical fiction series, and several other books of interest. This month, we especially enjoyed With the Indians in the Rockies a fascinating account based on a true story of two young men, one white and one Indian, who become stranded in the Montana Rockies and survive a brutal winter with only primitive tools.

Our Little Saxon cousin     by Julia Darrow Cowles
Our Little Athenian cousin     by Julia Darrow Cowles
Our Little Celtic Cousin     by Evaleen Stein
Our Little Viking cousin     by Charles H. L. Johnston
Our Little Aztec cousin     by Elizabeth Borton
Ten Boys from History     by Kate Dickinson Sweetser
Ten Boys from Dickens     by Kate Dickinson Sweetser
Into Mexico with General Scott     by Edwin Sabin
War with Meixco     by H. O. Ladd
Roses of Martyrdom     by C. M. Cresswell
With the Indians in the Rockies    by James Willard Schultz

Dear Heritage:   When I told my book club about your website someone pointed out that Google had already put all of the books ever published online. It is true that all of the books on Heritage History are already available at Google-Books?

 —Monica, CA

Heritage History has an entirely different purpose and selection criteria than Google-books, although there is some overlap in our contents. We recently surveyed the situation and found that only a third of the books available on Heritage History could also be found on Google-books. Google's collection is provided mainly by University libraries, and many of these do not retain juvenile history texts.

Even if Google does increase its selection of children's history books in the future, we do not think this will make Heritage History obsolete. The difference in format and emphasis between our projects is too great. Some of the differences are summarized as follows:

Copyright protected books vs. Public domain books
Google seeks to make all books, including both modern and older books available for content-based searches. Over 80% of Google books are copyright protected, so Google restricts their page-views—meaning that only a few pages of each book are accessible. It is therefore possible to search most of their books for specific phrases, but impossible to actually read the full texts. Heritage History deals exclusively with public-domain books, so copyright restrictions and limited availability are never issues. Our intended audience is not academics, who want to track down specific data, but rather novice history readers, who are seeking engaging stories from history.

Photo-copied pages vs. Versatile e-Books
Although Google books may be searched, the actual text may not be selected or copied either in full or in part. Google books are searchable page-scans, rather than actual e-books, meaning that the text that appears on screen is simply a photo-copy of the book itself, rather than an HTML textfile. The text cannot be copied or pasted, and any quotes taken from Google-books, must be retyped by hand. All of the books on Heritage History, on the other hand, are flexible e-texts, with inline illustrations. They may be selected, copied, or easily downloaded. They may also be accessed on a chapter-by-chapter basis, and searched using either a Google style text-based search, or Heritage History's proprietary category-based search.

Processed en masse vs. Individually crafted
All Google-books were automatically scanned by paid contractors. Google does not promote any particular books, or pre-sort them based on reading level, topic, or accessibility. No one at Google actually reads any of these books, or makes any judgment as to their quality or content. Every book on the Heritage Website, on the other hand, was individually selected, scanned, proof-read and formated by volunteers, who contributed their efforts precisely because they thought the specific book was of high value.

Zillions vs. Hundreds
When our daughter was assigned to do a report on "ethanol" we tried to research the topic on Google, but were overwhelmed with swarms of contradictory, and hard to sort-out references. In hopes of finding a more authoritative source, we went to library, and there were able to access several bazillion more articles. Sometime Too Much Information, is just as frustrating as too little information. Providing access to "everything" leaves novice users with the insurmountable difficulty of sorting out the worthwhile from the inappropriate, and it is in this area that we believe that Heritage History's restricted selection is particularly useful. Our collection is small enough so that it can be effectively browsed and comprehended, but large enough to encompass a wide range of interests and reading levels.

Although we appreciate the work that Google has done, and are avid users of its search tools, we also believe that taking the time and effort to identify and promote specific, high-quality books is uniquely useful to our intended audience. We have personally read and enjoyed almost all the books on our site, and believe they are of exceptional value to students, homeschoolers and self-learners.

I have recently been rethinking our homeschool strategies and our approach to history in particular. I am tired of doing all the "busywork" that is included with most history curriculums, and reading modern watered-down, politically-corrected versions of historical events. I had stumbled on your site some time ago and today decided to check it out before I decided where to go from here. Then I read the article How to Ruin a Good Story and just had to drop you a line. It was at the same time hilarious, sad, and so very spot-on. Thanks very much.

 —Amanda, NH

Thank you! It is nice to know someone actually reads these rants. That was the one of the first articles we ever posted on the website, and it does a pretty good job of summarizing the various ways that modern writers of history turn interesting stories into tedious drivel. Modern writers of history, as a whole, are so enamored of trendy social science theories, they simply cannot seem to relate a simple story without dealing with "issues", "comparisons" and "methods"—always with the noble aim of helping their readers understand the true significance of the events. There is no better way to turn an interesting story into a tedious harangue than to brow beat students with trendy theories of its contemporary relevance.

We don't actually believe, however, that political or religious "bias", in and of itself, is the critical problem with modern histories. A good number of the books in our collection could certainly be considered biased, or written from a definite political or religious point of view. Many books by our British authors are sympathetic to British imperialism; most of our Hispanic collection is at least mildly anti-Catholic; almost all of our Christian histories take a firm stand for, or against, the Protestant Reformation; and several of our military histories could be said to "glorify war."

The problem with modern histories, is not bias, but mind-numbing tedium. Our traditional authors sometimes wrote from a predisposed point of view, but at least they told interesting stories, intended to entertain their audience. Many modern authors have entirely forgotten that history was ever anything more than factoids, propaganda, and fodder for "critical thinking" exercises.

New Features and Activity:    

After spending the final six months of 2008 working on our Compact Libraries, it was a great relief to get back to actually producing new books and articles. We are currently finishing up the unit on Hispanic History and Exploration that we released in January. To this end, we have completed several more war and character pages, including the following:

Spanish American War
Mexican American War
Netherlands War of Independence
Mexican War of Independence
Carlist Wars
Conquest of Mexico
Conquest of Peru

In terms of new books, the two major themes we're working on include Hispanic/Exploration books and American Frontier/American Indian books. We thought the story of Vasco da Gama, was exceptionally interesting, and War With Spain includes some excellent background on the history of Cuba.

New books for February include:

War With Spain     by Charles Morris
Massasoit    by Alma Holman Burton
Vasco da Gama    by George M. Towle
Kit Carson    by John S.C. Abbott
Chevalier de La Salle    by John S.C. Abbott

Dear Heritage:   I have greatly enjoyed the information on your website regarding British-Indian Wars. Regrettably, however, although the content is quite interesting, it is also extremely racist. I am myself of Indian origin, and believe your content represents non-Europeans in bad light. Would it be possible to change the content to be more neutral for the benefit of readers of non-European origin? Thanks for your consideration.

 —Anup, India

We appreciate your interest in our website, but cannot make the changes you request for the reasons explained as follows:

All of the content on the Heritage website, including text, images, and maps were generated from "public-domain" sources that were published in the United States or England before 1923. We have preserved the original texts exactly as they were originally written to the best of our ability, without any edits, modifications, or omissions. Our policy is not to change anything, even those parts of the text that sound anachronistic, or inappropriate to modern readers, because we do not wish to modify the original author's intent. The texts on Heritage History are intended to reflect, not only historical events, but also the perception of those events as related by traditional authors.

If we changed our policy to allow edits of the traditional texts it would create enormous confusion. This is because it is impossible to anticipate what, precisely, is offensive to different people—often it is the tone of the writing that rankles, rather than specific phrases and this cannot be fixed with superficial edits. Worse, if we agreed to make some edits and not others, we would open ourselves up to unending criticism and second-guessing. The stories of history are crowded with exceedingly unpleasant realities, wretched events, and regrettable occurrences. We, therefore, prefer to leave the responsibility of coping with these difficulties to our audience, and assume that one needs to be somewhat thick-skinned to really enjoy, or understand history.

Speaking from our own experience, we find that history, fairly and broadly read, ends up representing just about everyone, Europeans included, in a bad light. Many Romans were decadent and vicious, particularly during the imperial age; the Vikings were murderous thugs, and the European totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were unspeakable abominations. We don't think that anyone could read the breadth of history that we have available on Heritage History and come away with the idea that there is a blameless race of people anywhere—certainly not Europeans.

We humans are a pretty sorry lot, if the truth be told. Nevertheless, we are undeniably interesting, often amusing, and occasionally inspiring. We hope you are able to enjoy the positive aspects of our website and overlook its shortcomings. Thanks again for your interest.

Dear Heritage:   I like the Heritage History approach because it reduces the amount of "busy-work" involved with teaching history, and seems to inspire more genuine interest. I intend to make history more of a free-reading period for my younger kids, who are homeshooled. My oldest daughter, however, is already in high school and she has never particularly liked history. She reads a lot, but not much history, and the social studies classes she takes at school do not inspire her (to put it mildly). Is there anything you would suggest in particular to try to interest a high schooler in history, or is it too late?

 —Mrs. B., WA

The good news is, it is never too late to start enjoying history. The bad news is, the late teens are often a very distractible age, even in the best of circumstances. Young adults have an enormous array of social, personal, and educational concerns, and may not be motivated by activities they see as non-essential. Your daughter is a member of a generation that does not, in general, give a fig about history, so pressure to learn the lessons of the past is not likely to come from that quarter. We mention this, not to be discouraging, but to set reasonable expectations.

We are happy to make specific recommendations, but first want to point out a few of our guiding principles, so you can adjust as necessary. First, history should not be burdensome. Our goal here is to inspire interest, not fill one's head with data. Therefore, if she already has a heavy course load, don't pile on during the semester, but instead wait until spring or summer vacation. And remember our oft-stated recommendation to start with easy books below her reading level. She should be able to read whatever it is you suggest easily and painlessly.

Second, appeal to her own interests, and consider her penchant for romance vs. relevance. By this we mean, some students are very practical and will be more genuinely interested in relatively modern, political history, while others—probably a majority—prefer escapist fare. If your daughter prefers the latter, then be satisfied with that inclination—it is precisely the tendency of social studies teachers to emphasize the political rather than the personal that "turns off" so many students to history.

Finally, use your families ethnic heritage to your advantage. Most students really do have a native interest in the background of their ancestors, and respond well to interesting history stories that specifically pertain to their forefathers. And the more specifically ethnic the better. Story of Japan might be of interest to Ito, Singh might prefer India, Scotland's Story, might be appropriate for McMann, and Story of Russia might appeal to Salefski.

With these generalities in mind, we're going to suggest a focus on British history, partly because we're assuming your family is of English-speaking heritage, and partly because it has a variety of selections along the entire romance to relevance spectrum. In other words, there is much that is both highly entertaining and of great consequence, and it provides a terrific background for a better understanding of American history. An excellent introduction to British History is Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall. It is a large book, over 400 pages long, but it is written at a sixth or seventh grade reading level, and its story-based histories are still very engaging for older students.

Once your daughter has completed a simple, comprehensive history, the most attractive genre for many girls is likely to be biography. A high schooler who is a good reader should be able to breeze through the whole collection of the Children's Heroes Series in very little time, and then, perhaps, turn to a few of the more challenging biographies. Hopefully, at this point she'll be interested enough to make her own selections, but don't become discouraged if you meet with a less than enthusiastic response. Modern young adults have an enormous amount on their plates, and sometimes need to clear a few things off in order to find a place for an appreciation of history. The stories will still be there whenever your daughter is ready to take an interest, be it now or later in life.

Dear Heritage:   Don't you think this is a rather unfortunate time to be launching a new home-based business? This is shaping up to be the worst recession in memory.

 —Concerned Friend

No, actually this is a terrific time to start this particular business. The "target" market for our Compact Libraries is well-educated cheapskates, such as ourselves. We expect that the current economic climate is likely to swell the ranks of frugal parents, teachers, students, and retirees. We believe, in fact, that the idea which we are promoting—that traditional history is a worthwhile pastime—is more appealing to people with more time, but less money, than it is to people with lots of money, but little time. And it is primarily the ranks of the latter that are fast diminishing.

At less than a dollar per book, each of which can provide hours of entertainment, our enterprise will not fail due to insufficient funds—Insufficient interest in the past; insufficient desire to learn the lessons of history; insufficient concern for persons and events outside of ones immediate sphere of experience—are fatal to Heritage History's mission. But a mere lack of money? Never.

Heritage History was not conceived of as a money-making proposition. We are doing this because it is worth doing rather than because it is profitable. (Sort of like having children!) We do not claim that the learning of history has a practical or remunerative value; only that it is an enjoyable and worthwhile pastime. And if our business fails completely it will be of some consolation to know that they won't be able to tax us to bail out all of the world's plutocrats.

Heritage History Readers:   

Welcome to the first installment of "Ask Heritage". The purpose of this column is to respond to questions and comments of Heritage History readers, of any age, background or interest. Readers are welcome to submit questions on practical matters regarding specific books, curriculums, or approaches to teaching history, or on broad philosophical questions regarding history that touch upon contemporary culture. If you have a question or comment, send email to askheritage@heritage-history.com. All submissions are subject to editing.

In addition to responding to questions from users, we will use this forum to introduce new books, new articles, and other features as they are added to the web page. In January 2009, a major revision of Heritage history was done that included so many major enhancements, that we created a New Features page just to introduce them. The amount of new material added in a typical month is likely to be far more modest, so this column should suffice for an introduction.

Our first column includes several questions that were asked verbally at a homeschool conference in Washington State. We made a record of the questions but do not know the names of some of the questioners.

Dear Heritage:   I have a fourth grader and a sixth grader. We would like to study Greek History next year. Your site contains at least five or six comprehensive histories of Greece. Which do you think is the best for those ages?

 —Mary K., WA

Our stock answer to this question would have to be Guerber's Story of the Greeks and Haaren's Famous Men of Greece. But the "and" is very important. We believe that students should read comprehensive histories from a minimum of two sources. They can read the books one at a time or else read related chapters concurrently, but going over the same material at least twice helps reinforce both interest and knowledge.

Very few students will retain much detail from a single reading, simply because too much information is presented too quickly. They'll retain much more after a second go-around, and even more on a third. Reading the same stories from different authors is a terrific way to learn the stories well, without rehashing the exact same material.

For older students or for young adults Magregor's Story of Greece is more in depth and more interesting than either of the other two. My reservation about using it for younger kids is that it may have too much detail. Younger students can only retain so much at time; so throwing too much information at them is not productive.

We'd also like out point out that your children are at a perfect age for studying Greek Mythology. Many of the Greek Mythology books on Heritage History are exceptionally good–we think Hawthorne's Wonder Book is especially noteworthy. We don't usually recommend non-Heritage books, but if you don't have a copy of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths you might consider getting one. It provides a terrific introduction to Greek Mythology, and most kids love it, largely because of the dramatic illustrations. Mythology, and especially Greek monster and hero stories are great favorites of both girls and boys in late grammar school.

Dear Heritage:   My son selected The Story of the Crusades from the Stories from History Series. I printed it out for him, but then he said he didn't like it. How do I help him pick out something he'll like better next time.

 —Meta B., WA

I think I can guess what is going on here. A lot of boys see pictures of knights and armor and are very attracted to them. But the Crusades were actually quite complicated and are relatively difficult to understand, especially for students that are too young to have any concept of European history or the idea of Christian versus Islam conflict. The stories are not connected to one another in a way that is comprehensible for young people, and each new "crusade" introduces new, unrelated characters. Not all "knight in shining armor" stories are created equal.

Given that your son seems interested in chivalry, there are a number of other good selections. The "Told to the Children" Stories of King Arthur, Roland, Siegfried, Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood, and William Tell, would probably all be right up his alley. Because each of these books is a single volume with a continuous story line they will probably hold his interest better. Other popular selections are Page, Esquire, and Knight, by Florence Lansing and Stories of Don Quixote by James Baldwin. All of these stories have plenty of sword fights and drama, and are more accessible than Stories of the Crusades.

Dear Heritage:   I was an A-student in school and have four years of college, but I still don't know almost any history. Now I'm trying to homeschool and I want my kids to have a much better education than I got. How can I teach history when I don't know any history? Where do we start?

 —VHS Conference Attendee

First of all, you are no worse off than we were ten years ago. You have pretty much described the proprietors of Heritage History as of 1996, as well as almost every college educated person of your entire generation. Almost nobody born after 1960 knows much history accept for a few military buffs. Colleges no longer require any grounding in history either to enter or to graduate. Even many History Majors don't know much history, at least in terms of breadth. One history major we know spent her entire senior year doing a research project on Andrew Johnson's reconstruction-era cabinet, but was not required to study any ancient history—It was considered more important to specialize than to master the basics. So don't be discouraged—you didn't necessarily miss much by failing to major in history.

Second, traditional juvenile history is simply the best way for a novice of any age to learn history. Many of the same books we recommend for youngsters are excellent resources for adults as well. Juvenile history is short, to the point, entertaining, and covers the most important events and characters of every age. Naturally, an educated adult will get more out of a particular book than a youngster will and will be able to "read between the lines" in many cases. So use the same resources we recommend for your kids, and try to stay ahead. If you are really curious, our website has plenty of good material for advanced readers as well as novices. We especially recommend our biographies for adults who want a more in depth perspective.

In terms of where to start, we are strong advocates of beginning with Greek and Roman History. The Ancients are positively fascinating—yet they were not taught at all at the public schools we attended in the 1970's. The Ancients were exceedingly sophisticated and had all the virtues and vices of advanced civilizations. Their works have been the basis of classical education for over a thousand years, and the Founders of the United States were steeped in Ancient, as well as British History. It is, in fact, impossible to really understand the thinking of the Founding Fathers without a good grounding in the Greeks and Romans. They were the original architects of Western Civilization, the "inventors" of democracy, science, drama, and philosophy, and most important—they are a great deal of fun to study. Kids love them!

Finally, attitude is very important. Don't think of yourself as someone who has "missed" something, but rather, as someone who is on the brink of a great discovery. History is actually more enjoyable to learn as an adult than it is for youngsters. History is a fascinating subject, and learning along with your kids can be the most gratifying part of homeschooling.

Dear Heritage:   You say that the most important aspect of History is entertainment. [See this article.] But if the main purpose of History entertainment, why should students read history books rather than play video games? Aren't there lots of more important reasons to study history?

 —VHS Conference Attendee

History is not "only" entertainment. Our point is, its entertainment value is its most important feature, and that when the innumerable other qualities of history are emphasized to the exclusion of entertainment, it essentially loses its soul. We do not intend to demean the many important lessons that history can teach in virtually all fields of human endeavor. History informs psychology, military science, political science, and is a pillar of both the humanities and the social sciences. But authors who strip all human interest from history to make way for abstract analysis cannot be said to be writing history.

Consider food as an analogy;—the essential value of food is calories. Vitamins are good; minerals are good; variety is good. Food that is attractive and good tasting is more desirable than slop. But if food doesn't have calories, it will not sustain life, and if history isn't entertaining, it will not sustain interest. Diet Coke is not food, and "Social Studies" is not history.