Is Susan Wise Bauer's "Story of the World" anti-Catholic?

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Hi all,
I’ve bought SWB’s early civilizations and my kids just love listening to the stories on CD. I’ve hesitated to buy later history for fear of anti-Catholic bias, or wording such as “papist”.
It is necessary for my children to understand that some of the people within the church have behaved poorly, but I don’t want to give them venomous slander. Does anyone have an opinion on whether history is treated fairly within Bauer’s “Story of the World”?
 
I look forward to the responses.

We completed Vol 1 – Ancient Times, then I read several reviews that *Vol 2 – The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance * had a strong Protestant lean. So, went straight to Vol 3 --*Early Modern times *.
 
We just started Vol 3 and I am a little unsure of it myself. The first chapter could have been taken either way and we were able to discuss it well. So far, I think that with a proper understanding of history and Church history, we will probably be ok. I look forward to others with more experience with it. (I suppose I ought to read through the entire book–I guess I know what I will be doing this weekend!)

Does anyone have any other good recommendations? I haven’t found anything comparable (although the Usborne book they recommended in their first edition doesn’t seem as bad).
 
stadre said:
Does anyone have any other good recommendations?
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This year with my fifth grader we’re using From Sea To Shining Sea: The Story of America. It’s from Catholic Heritage Curric.
It’s more in a textbook form than story form like SOTW.

My first grade twins are using SOTW.
My fifth grader loves doing the activities with them. 😎

I also have this one rchistory.com/index.htm…somewhere. I’ve looked through it, but haven’t used it…obviously, since I can’t find it at the moment. LOL
 
I have owned and used vol 1 and vol 2, but only previewed vol 3.
Vol. 1 had very little issues to worry over, imho. The book selections were high quality. (my one flag would be the story of Gilgamesh. There’s not a way to present that story for a wee mind and still retain the essence of the story, imho.) The activities are fun and varied enough that you can go all out of just do something simple. This was the best as far as worry free for catholic use.
**Vol. 2 covers the middle ages - which introduces Luther/reformation. It isn’t really gone into very much and is very “glancing” considering it is a protestant publisher/author. 1 chapter could be completely skipped, modified/supplimented, or used as a lesson about what others think vs our truth. Which is what we did without issue. This was the best as far as pure enjoyment, but that could be because I had 6 boys who thrilled to call sword fights history.😉 **
**The plague is also mentioned. Did you know that the plague killed not 1/3 of Europe, but of the world’s population!? wow. Again the author has not gone into much detail here. Partly due to the young age the material is gear towards and partly to allow parents to use their own discretion. Personally, I don’t pull a lot of punches. This is life. I didn’t think it was graffic in the least, but some mother’s just wouldn’t want ti discussed at all. They would feel the same about a saint story where the saint is brutally martyred. **
Vol. 3 I previewed would NOT recomment. There is much more in disagreement and I found that the effort to omit, suppliment, modify, and so forth was not worth it. Especially as there are so many wonderfull Catholic options for learning more recent history.
Vol. 4 Gets a flat no. Is so not catholic, imo, that very little of it would be used as given by a practicing catholic. For the time, money, and worry of changing it - you could buy some very quality materials that would not require that of you.
**so there’s my opinion for what ever you may think it’s worth.🙂 **
 
To Rob’s Wife,
What other audio series do you know of that cover world history? I’ve bought as many as I can find from Bethlehem Books, Jim Weiss’ Greathall Productions, etc. My kids enjoy listening for entertainment, so it is not the sum total of our history, but I do like to get it all reinforced is such a pleasant way.
Thanks for any suggestions.
 
momstheword said:
To Rob’s Wife,
What other audio series do you know of that cover world history? I’ve bought as many as I can find from Bethlehem Books, Jim Weiss’ Greathall Productions, etc. My kids enjoy listening for entertainment, so it is not the sum total of our history, but I do like to get it all reinforced is such a pleasant way.
Thanks for any suggestions.
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I will say that the audto cd’s were much better than I thought they would be… didn’t sound monotone and never deviated for the texts. Most are really not worth it, but those sounded just like some mom sitting in the room reading it without interruption. Which would never have happened if the real mom was actually there reading it. lol
**I don’t know of other “series” off the top of my head… However, does it have to be a series? There are many audio books in general available in various genres that you could read/hear through out your studies to reenforce the lesson or broaden them. A children’s biography about someone during the time period being studied for example. We rent them off Netflix (a great resource, imho, although not everything is suitable of course) and borrow from the library. **
 
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