Putting the Story back into History

There are two quite distinct purposes of history; the superior purpose, which is its use for children, and the secondary, or inferior purpose, which is its use for historians. The highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story.
          —G. K. Chesterton

If you are visiting the Heritage History electronic library for the first time, welcome! Our library contains hundreds of entertaining and easily-read history books which were written for students and non-specialists many years ago, and are currently in the public domain. Likewise, all the illustrations, maps, and other history-related material on our site were taken from books that are no longer copyright protected and therefore, are available to republish without cost.

The mission of Heritage history is to make old-fashioned history books, written for the enjoyment of young people, freely available in a convenient, and easily reproducible electronic form. There are restrictions on usage, but most of the information on this site can be freely shared for any non-commercial use.

We have developed the Heritage History website with the specific intention of doing our small part to help redirect the modern focus of history from its current degraded position as fodder for historians and social scientists, to its former and more elevated purpose as entertainment.

That history can be very instructive we do not deny. That it must be instructive, and that its primary purpose is to instruct, is the modern impulse that we seek to oppose. We seek to promote, not so much the study of history, as the enjoyment of History.

By making available "old-fashioned" history, as it was enjoyed as a pastime rather than studied as a subject, Heritage-History hopes to repair some of the damage to its reputation inflicted by "social studies", and reawaken the interest of a new generation.

Most of the books prepared for Heritage History take a old-fashioned, or story-based approach to presenting history, rather than an analytical or modern approach. Our books do not attempt to explain the "underlying forces," that influence history, or critique ancient notions of human rights, or focus on contrasts between cultures. Instead they are based simply on stories that have been retold for dozens of generations regarding individual characters, important conflicts, and events of special interest. The stories are connected by simple narrative threads, and are completely shorn of complicated analysis.

This approach to history is not our own invention, but was in fact, the traditional approach to teaching young people history in almost every introductory history book right up until the mid 20th century. The trend toward interpreting history as social science in the Universities began in the 19th century, but it was not until the baby-boomer generation that "social studies" and historical criticism replaced traditional, narrative history in elementary and secondary schools.

Most of our authors were aware of these trends, and opposed them, specifically stating in their introductions the importance of emphasizing the most interesting aspects of history first, and avoiding the

"dull recitation of the textbook. That in the past which a child is led to see is history; all else is weariness and vexation."

Whatever the merits of this new analytical approach may be, it is considerably less interesting to most students than the traditional approach, and modern students are far less knowledgeable about history than their great-grandparents were.

The books we have selected to publish on Heritage History come from the private libraries of a few collectors of history books for young people. Many of these books were found by combing the juvenile history shelves in hundreds of used book stores. Others were identified by reviewing book catalogs published by librarians in the early twentieth century.

In addition to books, we have prepared maps, illustrations, timelines, references pages, and other resources that we hope will be of help in learning about civilizations of the past.

All of the books and images included on this website have been prepared by volunteers, simply for the pleasure of sharing these fascinating stories from past times. Each book was selected, formatted, and proof-read with individual attention. We have focused primarily on "juvenile" history, but also include books of interest to moderately sophisticated adults. None of our books, however, require specialized knowledge of economics, political philosophy, or contemporary academic theories.

The introductory (green links) books in our collection can be read by an older grammar school student; the intermediate (brown links) refer to material appropriate for middle school; and even the most advanced (red links) books on our site can be enjoyed by an intelligent high school student.

The scope of the stories available on Heritage History is world-wide, although it is true that there is more material available, especially at the grammar school and intermediate levels, for traditional western civilizations. Even so, we have some excellent selections on Chinese, Japanese, Indian, African, American Indian, Moslem, and Hispanic History, and will continue to add material in these areas. For the purpose of organizing the web page, all world civilizations for which we have significant material have been assigned to one of eleven major categories:

For four of these civilizations—Greece, Rome, Britian, and Spain— have been completed in more depth than the others. Although we plan to continue to add books in all areas over the next few years, but we typically focus most of our effort on one or two civilizations at a time, and are currently working on Christian, and American History (focusing mainly on American Frontier/American Indian history, than political history). For more information about our organization of world civilizations, see our About Civilizations page.

Our story-based histories do not include academic conjectures about pre-history, but do encompass myths, legends and folklore. Robin Hood, Achilles, and Siegfried are only a few of the fabulous characters that can be found in our collection. In almost all ancient civilizations, in fact, the earliest histories are shrouded in legend, and stories of these fantastic heroes are often written for school-age children.

On the opposite end of the historical spectrum, our histories all end in 1923, the date at which copyright law currently sets as the limit between those works in the public domain, and those which cannot be published without the express permission of the author. This means our histories end shortly after the First World War, and do not cover much of the twentieth century.

It some ways this is fortunate. Although recent history is certainly interesting, it is impossible to address without raising contentious issues, analyzing world-views, and discussing controversial persons and events. This difficult task we gladly leave to modern bloggers, politicos, and teachers. We only ask that those who presume to speak on the important issues of today, first trouble themselves to learn the important lessons of yesterday. After all:

"Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes."
          —G. K. Chesterton