Peter the Great, born 1672, Tsar of Russia 1682-1725
Below, I have linked in a sample chapter from my current writing project, Famous Men of the 18th Century.
Like the previous Famous Men books, this one will include about 30 short biographies of key figures whose lives will collectively, tell the story [...]
Unlike some of Sarah Palin’s critics, I’ve waited until I actually read the book from page 1 to the end (page 413). It’s a good read. The subtitle is “An American Life.” It is an autobiography, not a political manifesto. It would be [...]
We’ve always been big proponents of the study of art history as a part of the study of any historical time period. Along with literature, art provides abundant opportunities to explore what people in another time thought, valued, believed, or were interested in. Art can be studied with students in [...]
There’s never been a shortage of children’s books on the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving, of course. But over time, fashion and political correctness have influenced how the story is told and what details are included, emphasized, or omitted. I’m happy to report that some of the recent titles are returning to [...]
Just published last month! National Geographic has added another title to their outstanding series of photo-books which use re-enactors to depict early American history. 1776: A New Look at Revolutionary Williamsburg
joins earlier titles 1607: Jamestown; 1620: Mayflower; and 1621: Thanksgiving. I [...]
Franklin truly was a genius. He set an example for American ingenuity and advances in science that inspired generations of entrepreneurs and self-taught inventors.
This is the latest title in the excellent series of titles from Chicago Review Press which also includes George Washington for Kids, [...]
“. . . his methods of therapy have proved on the whole, costly failures, more suited to cosset the unhappy than cure the sick. We now know that many of the central ideas of psychoanalysis have no basis in biology. They were, indeed, formulated by Freud before the discovery of [...]
Galileo Galilei is one of the key figures in the history of science. One of his most famous exploits occurred when he was a young man of 26 at the very beginning of his career. In 1589, he had just been appointed as a Professor at [...]
Usborne has been producing quality color reference books for children for several decades now. Their books have always featured lots of original color artwork along with short, explanatory paragraphs which function as expanded captions. Medieval World joins two other classic titles that we have long [...]
We sometimes forget that, in pre-Revolutionary America, the religious landscape was dominated by churches that rested on legal establishment: the Congregationalists in New England, and the Episcopalians in New York, Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. What exactly did legal establishment mean? It is so far removed from [...]
I admit it. I am a sucker for pop-up books. I find the engineering fascinating, and take great delight in watching how a 3-dimensional scene pops-up when you unfold the pages. The genre began in the late 19th century (when children’s books first began to develop as a separate category) [...]
“During a congressional committee hearing in the late 1960s, as a Census Bureau official told it, a congressman was questioning statisticians from the bureau about the projected scope and costs of the 1970 census. The tenor of his questions was highly critical. Why did the bureau need to ask so [...]
I received a copy of one of my specialty magazines today, MAIL.
There are two headlines on the cover:
USPS To Discount First-Class Mail 20% To Boost Volumesand
Post Will Default on Retiree Payment to U.S.TreasuryAbout the first – I doubt that the bulk use of First-class mail is all that sensitive to [...]
In no branch of science would there be any real advance if every generation started fresh with no dependence upon what past generations have achieved. Yet in theology, vituperation of the past seems to be thought essential to progress. And upon what base slanders the vituperation is based! After listening [...]
The truth is that when men speak of trust in Jesus’ Person, as being possible without acceptance of the message of His death and resurrection, they do not really mean trust at all. What they designate as trust is really admiration or reverence. They reverence Jesus as the supreme Person [...]
“. . . the condition of mankind is such that one may well ask what it is that made the men of past generations so great and the men of present generations so small. . .”
- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 1923, page 13
A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle [...]
In the state of Oregon, on Election Day, 1922, a law was passed by referendum vote in accordance with which all children in the state are required to attend the public schools. Christian schools and private schools, at least in the all-important lower grades, are thus wiped out of existence. [...]
I’m re-reading Prof. Milton Gaither’s intriguing book Homeschool: An American History which takes on the ambitious task of describing the history of homeschooling in the United States. I’ve decided it’s actually three separate books.
Part One is the history of [...]
Answer: With free-market entrepreneurial private schools.
I’ve just finished reading this most remarkable book: The Beautiful Tree – A personal journey into how the world’s poorest people are educating themselves. Fresh out of college in 1983, James Tooley went to Zimbabwe to teach school. [...]
Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company & Conversation.
Greenleaf Press is very pleased to announce that all four volumes in this series are now in print and available!
When George Washington was sixteen years old, he began copying 110 maxims for polite [...]
I will be the featured guest on the BlogTalkRadio show Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism tonight at 8:00pm Central Time (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific). The show is hosted by Babe Huggett and Warner Todd Huston.
We’ll be talking about BOTH of Obama’s speeches this week, starting with the [...]
Capitalism and free markets are NOT based on “greed.”
They are based on the concept of liberty and inalienable rights.
They presuppose a government established by consent of the governed to protect and guarantee those rights.
The genius of capitalism is that it realistically assesses human nature and human behavior and then by [...]
Obama has often made the assertion that a federal-government-run “public option” is a necessary, fundamental part of healthcare reform because “competition is needed to keep the private insurance companies honest.”
If a “public option” is necessary to provide competition in what has until now been a private sector of the economy, [...]
Textbooks and tutors after you decided to homeschool your daughter through high school: $5,000
Salary you would have received if you had continued teaching high school instead of homeschooling: $40k/year
Text message from your daughter during her first week in college: “I got extra credit cause I was the [...]
They’re not just blaming the failure of city & state authorities to evacuate folks on Bush, they’re blaming the actual hurricane itself on Bush. Here’s a quote from an email they just sent out today:
President Bush’s short-term failures compounded the suffering along the Gulf Coast in those fateful days. But [...]
It’s done! Finished, edited, proofed and approved. And we have copies on the shelves!
The sequel to Famous Men of the Renaissance and Reformation.
Rather than reprinting Famous Men of Modern Times (which is a bit uneven in both tone and selection), we have made the decision [...]
Answer: The government mandating that ALL healthcare insurance pay for abortions.
That is precisely what H.R.3200 (aka Obamacare) will do. After the passage of the bill, although existing policies which did not include abortion coverage might be grandfathered for a while, they would not be allowed to enroll any new subscribers. [...]
Our healthcare system has a few problems.
It’s not in crisis, but there are some areas we could improve.
There are a number of people without health insurance, perhaps as many as 47 million, or 16% of the US population. It’s not clear whether that can be reduced to zero, or even [...]
I was 14 years old during the summer of Woodstock. The highlight of my summer was six weeks at summer camp at the Baylor School campus on the banks of the Tennessee river just outside Chattanooga.
It really wasn’t until the next year that I was aware of Woodstock. But when [...]
In 1948, Orwell wrote the introduction to a historical collection of British Pamphlets. He liked the pamphlet. He admits that most of them were rubbish, but he clearly admires them, finds them incendiary, and the perfect symbol of the individual rebelling against the bureaucratic machinery. Everything he says about pamphlets, [...]
It’s $19.95, but there might be some folks who would get some satisfaction by sending it as a gift to their favorite congress critter.
[...]There are at least three reasons:
This is a manufactured crisis. Voters know they are being lied to. Voters know they were being ignored.1. This is a manufactured crisis. Life expectancy is at an all-time high. Infant mortality is at an all-time low. The very small differences in infant mortality between us and [...]
I’ve just finished several days of quite rewarding work re-organizing and generally making some welcome improvements to the Greenleaf Press website.
The short version: We’ve added categories and organized the books in a much more logical and convenient fashion for each of the major periods of history. Rather than having [...]
President Obama has his dis-information Czar.
Glen Beck has a dis-dis-information Czar.
Hilarity ensues.
[...]With the imminent publication of Famous Men of the 16th & 17th Century, I decided to review, revise, & update the Greenleaf scope and sequence for the study of history.
After 20 years of teaching history, talking to homeschooling parents, and continuing to read and write on historical topics, I am [...]
The Bible is very easy to understand.
But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers.
We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words [...]
Saluting Barack Obama’s Americorps.
Watch for this special moment.
It comes at 1:02 into the 1:24 clip below:
[...]
When he was 16, he had to flee England when the Puritans defeated and captured his father, King Charles I. His father was executed when he was 19 as he was trying desperately to organize an army to invade England and rescue him. He made promises [...]
With of the contraction in the book publishing world, it’s refreshing to “find” a persevering publisher with a number of very nice titles.
Kids Can Press is a Canadian publishing firm, founded in 1973 and headquartered in Toronto.
They have two series of children’s historical books that I find delightful.
Over the past [...]
Ms. Spears and I exchanged several email messages this morning (in my capacity as Vice President of the Tennessee Association of Church-Related Schools). I am happy to report that she has issued the following letter of clarification:
Dear Home School Parent:
It was brought to my attention that the letter sent out [...]
unrealistic expectations
over-scheduling and under-scheduling
ignoring child feedback
over-spending
isolation
thinking you can do it all
proselytizing
To read all the details, and a REALLY excellent article, click on over to the Link Homeschool News Network and read the article by Diane Flynn Keith.
[...]
I’ve just finished drafting a short biography of John Winthrop for my next book, Famous Men of the 16th & 17th Century. The biographies begin with Queen Elizabeth and will end with the death of Louis XIV in 1715.
This has been a difficult chapter for me [...]
John C. Beale, age 39, husband, father, and member of the Georgia National Guard was killed in Afghanistan on June 4th, 2009. He was a Staff Sergeant with the 1st Battalion, 108th Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. He is survived [...]
Back in September, we were very pleased to announce that we had become the publisher for Valerie Bendt’s Reading Made Easy. Reading Made Easy is a complete, phonics-based, reading instruction program. Valerie and her husband Bruce have homeschooled all six of their children and [...]
Back in September, we were very pleased to announce that we had become the publisher for Valerie Bendt’s Reading Made Easy. Reading Made Easy is a complete, phonics-based, reading instruction program. Valerie and her husband Bruce have homeschooled all six of their children and [...]
1776. The vote for independence, and the public reading of the Declaration.
From the HBO John Adams series.
Adams was the leading proponent. Franklin was the vote-getter/strategist. Jefferson drafted the soaring prose.
Take a moment and savor. Watch it with your children. Give thanks to God for the Founders.
[...]
Created in 1989, the Convention (often abbreviated as the “CRC”) has a number of laudable goals and features. It has been ratified by 193 countries around the world. The only two UN member states which have NOT ratified it are Somalia and [...]
Our family has been richly blessed over the past years by being part of a worshiping community at Abundant Life Church in Mt. Juliet, TN led by a very gifted worship team. Most of the players (guys and gals) on the worship team are music professionals in Nashville. They do [...]
Congressman Offers Preemptive Apology For Extramarital Affair
“Later this afternoon, I will be engaging in an extramarital affair”
“Of course, I will wish I had never made the horrible mistake I am about to spend several hours making . . .”
Sometimes, it’s hard to parody life.
[...]
Today is the 56th anniversary of the 17th-of-June-Uprising in East Germany. The textbook version says that the workers were reacting to reductions in wages and increases in work quotas. Economic factors were at play, and the political leadership of East Germany had, indeed, proposed oppressive [...]
. . . is good for the gander?
BlueCollarMuse is reporting that a DEMOCRATIC staffer at the Tennessee State Legislature sent out an email with the subject line: Smiles for Monday that is, if anything, much more offensive than the email forwarded by the administrative assistant to Diane Black.
Very cool global collaboration on an old classic from the 1960s.
Great idea, great execution. Kudos to the recording engineers and to the software gurus who edited and blended both the video & audio tracks which were recorded months and thousands of miles apart.
Great example of how communication & collaboration tools [...]
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain holds that office by succession to the head of his party when Tony Blair retired from politics. He has never led his party through an election and has no mandate of his own as Prime Minister. And it looks as though he never [...]
It’s been a busy year! And it’s only June!
It occurred to me that I should take a minute and update friends & gentle readers on what’s been going on at Greenleaf Press. A lot, actually. I forget, in the day-to-day press of the urgent some of the significant things that [...]
England held local elections yesterday. England is divided up into counties and independent cities (so-called “unitary authorities,” meaning the cities are not part of the surrounding county, but are the sole local government authority). The local councils then, although smaller in population than US states, are the next level down [...]
“If you had been on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg, you’d have paid anything for a life preserver. . .”
So runs the narration in a current radio ad urging us to buy gold. There is a slight problem with this analogy however. Buying a life preserver on the [...]
Just ran across Shelley Esaak’s art history section at About.com. I recommend it highly. She’s a delightful writer with a direct style and has a way of making art accessible, interesting, and fun.
Her descriptions of what these three titans would be like as dinner party guests seemed to me [...]
One of the intimidating parts of the Web 2.0 / Social Networking phenomenon is figuring out how to use it - and how it’s being used. The awkwardness of trying a new online experience can be daunting.
To my fellow boomers, I have two exhortations:
1) Anything worth doing, is worth doing [...]
This was created by a teen-ager in Alabama and posted on Youtube about a month ago.
It is outstanding. Take four minutes and watch it. You will not regret it.
Making an appearance:
King George III George Washington Thomas Jefferson Ben Franklin Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” Don’t Tread on Me (Gadsden Flag) Washington Crossing the Delaware Washington praying at [...]This Thursday night (6/4/2009), at 8:00 PM Pacific/10:00 PM Central/11:00 PM Eastern, I’ll be on the blogtalkradio show Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Conservatism.
The show is hosted by Babe Huggett (who blogs at TheRealityCheck.org) and Warner Todd Huston (who is a prolific blogger and owner of [...]
Chilling.
This banner pretty much says it all. It was displayed in New York City as part of a counter-protest to a rally celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the nation of Israel on Sunday, May 31, 2009 - just hours ago.
It is this assertion that the Islamic terrorists use [...]
Whoever killed George Tiller has committed murder. For that they will have to give an answer to the civil authorities and, ultimately, to God.
As will George Tiller for his actions. But Tiller’s notorious guilt as a late-term abortionist does not make the act of murdering him any less wicked.
The best [...]
Several weeks ago, we drove over to Knoxville to watch our oldest daughter receive her Masters Degree in History. Chinese history to be more precise. All my fault, actually. I took her with me when she was thirteen when I went to China to complete the adoption of her younger [...]
Taken from Captain John Smith by Arthur Granville Bradley, copyright 1905:
A colony of French Huguenots had settled on the coast of Florida in 1565. Pedro de Menendez attacked it with overwhelming numbers, and hanged every grown male in the settlement on trees to the number of a hundred and forty [...]
A friend (and colleague from the world of homeschooling) sent me a message (on facebook, of course!) this morning:
Rob, I should have guessed you’d be lead geek in any party… how do you use Twitter?
My answer turned into an essay:
First a joke: “Twitter is the internet service for people who [...]
John Taylor Gatto has a new book out. That is cause for celebration. For those who are not familiar with him, a bit of his biography is in order. Gatto taught for 30 years in the public schools of New York City, specifically Community School District [...]
There have been a number of innovative books for children and young adults in recent years which have used innovative artwork to transport readers back in time by presenting to them reproductions of original source material. There are excellent books on the year 1776 (1776: The Illustrated Edition) and [...]
The importance of understanding Egyptian history and culture can hardly be over-estimated. Egypt is the country mentioned most often in the Old Testament. Israel’s prophets foretell the future not just for Israel, but for Egypt as well.
Abraham had dealings with Pharaoh, as did Jacob and Joseph. The [...]
The State of Tennessee’s jihad against homeschoolers continues.
It began in late 2007 and continued into 2008. An employee of the Department of Education, nominally in charge of the office of non-public schooling was criss-crossing the state making a presentation in which she declared that the diplomas issued by Tennessee’s church-related, [...]
As they did last year.
And the year before that.
And the year before that.
Here’s how that number is derived and reported by the Centers for Disease Control:
“Using new and improved statistical models, CDC scientists estimate that an average of 36,000 people (up from 20,000 in previous estimates) die from influenza-related complications [...]
Steve Eves was 10 years old in 1969. That summer, the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon.
Last Saturday, Eves set a new amateur rocketry record when he launched his 1/10th scale replica of the Saturn V rocket from a farm in Maryland.
The model Saturn V was 36 feet tall, [...]
Come to the Castle, by Linda Ashman, illuminated by S.D. Schindler
Tricking the Tallyman, by Jacqueline Davies, illustrated by S.D. Schindler
These two books have at least two things in common. They were both published in 2009, and they were both illustrated (illuminated) by S.D. Schindler. They’re also both entertaining [...]
Marius
The end of the Roman Republic was signaled by the transformation of political disputes into criminal prosecutions.
The Romans had always dabbled with a dangerous brew of political trials and private prosecutors. There were no public prosecutors, so even criminal charges had to be brought by a [...]
If deficit spending were truly stimulative, then why didn’t the Bush deficits stimulate the economy?
If World War II brought us out of the Great Depression, then shouldn’t the War in Iraq have stimulated the US economy?
These are just two of the provocative questions raised in the [...]
[...] 
Some years ago, the Shearer children were practicing their handwriting in their handwriting workbooks – the kind with the nicely spaced ruled lines to help in keeping the letters equally sized – but were finding the standard sentences more than a bit boring.
Cyndy had just run [...]
Something astonishing happened on TV last Sunday - Easter Sunday ironically enough. One of the leading characters on a primetime TV action-drama show walked into a church and had a religious experience. More specifically than that, he “renounced his sins” and “accepted Jesus - with all my heart.”
One of the [...]
At times the abuse came in torrents, with the republican press referring to him variously as “a gambler, a cheapskate, a horsebeater, a dictator, and a most horrid swearer and blasphemer.” He was labeled “treacherous,” “mischievous,” and “inefficient.” He was said to favor “stately journeying through the American continent in [...]
The budget deficits incurred by President Bush were excessive, and wrong.
The budget deficits enacted in the budgets adopted by the Republican-led Congress from 2000-2006 were excessive, and wrong.
President George Bush has completed his two terms of office and will not run for office again.
The Republican congressmen [...]
Greenleaf Press proudly announces the publication of Voices of the Renaissance and Reformation, edited by Robert G. Shearer. Voices includes 31 original source selections by 19 of the key figures from the Renaissance and Reformation.
The Renaissance selections include sonnets by Petrarch, a letter by [...]
When Cyndy started homeschooling our children in 1985, we talked (a lot) about what we wanted to teach them, and how. For the first few years, the basics of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic were fairly obvious and straightforward – Cyndy had taken several education methods courses and already understood the [...]
“equal protection can only be defined by the standards of each generation.”
- the Iowa Supreme Court, Varnum et al v. Brien 04/03/2009 p 16
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that Iowa’s marriage law (which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman) [...]
I was fourteen years old in the summer of 1969, the summer when we landed on the moon. I was at summer camp in Chattanooga when Apollo 11 touched down in the Sea of Tranquility. The astronauts weren’t scheduled to walk until an hour or so after “lights-out,” but everyone [...]
Glen Beck shows he is more principled than the attorney general of Connecticut.
[...]Just published this week - three new reference works for children on Egypt, Greece, & Rome.
Each is built around a clever premise, very well executed. These three full-color glossy paperbacks are great introductions for kids in elementary and middle school to three of great ancient civilizations. The stories are factual [...]
The delicacy of the new Secretary for Homeland Security is now causing her to refrain from using the word “terrorism.”
This is, of course, sophistry.
Terrorism is not the invention of Al-Qaeda, nor is it a defining characteristic of radical Islam.
It has a meaning that is fairly simple to understand. An act [...]
Photo by Logan Hoffman / for the News-Leader
Homeschooling sports teams are coming of age. The breadth, depth, and quality of play at the national basketball tournament has been steadily improving for the past five or six years. This year’s event in Springfield, MO involves 340 teams [...]
The Shootist reports that several purchasers of expended brass ammunition casing from the Department of Defense have been notified that they may no longer use the brass for reloading and resale. The DOD, effective immediately is requiring that the shell casings be destroyed. They [...]
Lives of the Ancient Egyptians: Pharaohs, Queens, Courtiers and Commoners
by Toby Wilkinson (Thames & Hudson, 2007)
100 biographies - Many Pharaohs, but there are others, including Imhotep the Architect; Metjen, Pharaoh’s servant; Perniankhu, court dwarf; Hemira, priestess from the [...]
[...] 
