Story of the World errors?

[BoyOBoy]

I read reviews elsewhere of Story of the World complaining about a number of factual errors in Story of the World. Has any one else found errors? If so, how significant were they?

Any other recommendations for chronological history for elementary grades?

[NancyNellen]

Every curriculum will have it's naysayers, and history must be interpreted by the writer, so you may not agree with every jot and tittle. I have used SOTW for 8 years. I find that there is absolutely no better history curriculum for the grammar stage. Period.

[BoyOBoy]

Thank you, Nancy. I really like what I know of it, though I've yet to look at a copy in person. I know no program will ever be perfect; I just wanted to make sure it was historically accurate, as much as possible. Thank you for your vote of confidence!

[asmall]

Some of the Story of the World volumes have been revised. We have the revised editions.

AL

[KrissiK]

Every curriculum will have it's naysayers, and history must be interpreted by the writer, so you may not agree with every jot and tittle. I have used SOTW for 8 years. I find that there is absolutely no better history curriculum for the grammar stage. Period.

 

:iagree: It's an amazing curriculum. And I've always wondered, when people say there are errors in her book, how do they know it's her book that there's errors in and not the other source they may be looking at? You also have to take the curriculum for what it is. It's written for younger elementary age. She's taken, in some cases, complicated history, complicated people and condensed it and summarized it so that it's interesting and young children can understand it. It's not a comprehensive study of history. It's a narrative. An overview.

Edited June 29, 2012 by KrissiK

[Kathryn]

I've seen accusations of errors, and refuted a few, but the only valid accusation I've personally seen is that after talking about MacBeth, she says that Queen Elizabeth "probably enjoyed this play." Elizabeth died before MacBeth was produced. I expect this "error" is because the chapter on Shakespeare is in Vol. 2 and James, the next monarch, isn't introduced until Vol. 3, but doesn't excuse the implication that Elizabeth would have seen it.

[boscopup]

I noticed one error in a Bible story, but we just read the Bible account and talked about which one we believe is correct. ;)

 

Honestly, even minor errors probably aren't going to affect the children using the program. They're in grades 1-4 usually, and they are not going to remember everything written in the books.

 

Also, you will use other sources alongside SOTW and alongside any future text your children use in middle/high school. It's not like it's "riddled with errors". It just has a very small amount as would be expected in a text designed for young elementary students.

 

There is no such thing as a 100% accurate history book.

[Farrar]

There have been threads about this many times before... While I'm sure it's not error free because every book is going to have at least some minor error somewhere, I've found that most people who shout that it's riddled with errors really mean to say that they feel it's too Christian or too secular, which is a totally separate issue.

[Peplophoros]

I am an ancient historian and while there were errors in Vol. 1, they didn't bother me at all. College-level textbooks are full of "errors"--some resulting from misinformation, some resulting from differences in interpretation (and therefore are only "errors" to some!). For me, the real value of this book is not for my son to remember when exactly the Minoans were wiped out with a volcano (they were not--had to bite my tongue with that one), but to introduce places, peoples, and behaviors of the past to my son, which these books do brilliantly. When he's old enough to evaluate history writing and its sources, then he can quibble with particulars, but until then, he's learning an enormous amount and will be well-equipped to discuss and evaluate history in the future.

[BoyOBoy]

Your responses were very helpful and encouraging; thank you. I am not terribly concerned that my children learn all these minute details. I just wanted to be sure that these errors (which I fully agree will be present in any book to some extent) were not indicative of too loose an approach to the historical narrative. It is this narrative that most attracts me to story of the world, as what I want for my children at this age is to learn to love history and be excited by it.

[Mom2Es]

I don't know about full-on errors, but there were a couple of things in there where I had some knowledge of what was being presented, and she definitely was taking literary liberties with the narrative (i.e. saying, "X happened, or Such-and-so thought..." when we don't know that and she was speculating and being imaginative to fill in the story).

 

It's not a big deal when I know enough to point it out, but it did make me wonder how much of that was happening in the rest of the material with topics I don't know much about.

[nmoira]

The most substantial error I found in Volume is that it says native North Americans ate wheat, a grain which was not actually introduced to North American until after 1600 A.C.E. This is a big deal because it's a high protein crop that helped make denser population and labour specialization possible in Europe, and for which there was no North American equivalent. I'm surprised this wasn't caught before the second edition.

[freerange]

There's a pronunciation error on the audio version - Battle of Naseby should be pronounced naze-bee, not with a short a. I think I alarmed my kids by yelling at the cd player. :blushing:

[goldenecho]

I did an extensive search on the internet...and here's what I found (yeah, some of you are quoted in this, cause this is one of the posts I found, before I was a member here.  I was looking over it today and found a link to this post in my notes and thought I'd share this with you all). 

 

Of course, not all of this is error.  Some of it is about things that are contested by historians, and others simplifications or omissions.

 

----

 

Chap 1
Says "around 7,000 years ago families didn't live in houses and shop at grocery stores" but were nomads...some have issue with this because of evidence of cities dated to 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia.  If you believe in young earth theology might disagree and think that number is too long.  Regardless, dates are an easy edit if you are reading aloud to a child.

Chap 3
The description of how papyrus was made is completely wrong.  She says that the papyrus reeds were softened and mashed into a pulp.  That is how modern paper is made (and probably some other later ancient papers made from wood pulp), but not how papyrus is made (now or ever).  It is cut into thin strips, pounded to flatten and soaked (can't remember which comes first), woven into sheets than pressed (now in presses, then, under stones).  Later when she said "But paper has a problem!  When paper gets wet, the ink on it dissolves and the paper falls apart."  The part about the ink dissolving in water is true of papyrus, but unlike pulp made paper, papyrus can be soaked in water and still be re-used...though her point about loosing things still stands.  (Interesting side note:  Papyrus, which less sturdy in the short run than leather, in the long run, over thousands of years, holds up better than it...so we have more papyrus than leather scrolls from Ancient Egypt).  


Chap 4
- Describes New Kingdom mummification practices in the section about the Old Kingdom and the pyramids.
- States that Pharaohs weren't buried in mastaba tombs when they had been before the invention of the pyramid.
- - States that the pyramid capstones were plated with gold when they were plated with electrum, an alloy of silver and gold  (OK, honestly, I think this "error" is nitpicky and only include it to be thorough.  Electrum is "a natural or artificial alloy of gold with at least 20 percent silver"...since it contains gold I think gold is close enough for a children's text).

Chap 6
She states that she's going to tell the story of Abram from the Bible and then freely mixes in extrabiblical sources and free interpretations.  A lot of Children's Bible stories do similarly.  Finding another version these stories in a Children's Bible is not hard if you do not like this one, and of course you can read the story straight from the Bible in stead as well.



OUT OF ORDER CAUSE I HAVEN'T GOTTEN THERE YET, so I organized these by place, not chapter.   Some of the following is quoted straight from the source I found mentioning the error.

CRETE/MINOANS
She informs the reader that the Minoan civilization was destroyed by the eruption of Thera when it really flourished two centuries after that explosion.

From another source:  " there's still a lot of controversy over what happened. SWB chose one theory. While it's true Crete wasn't deserted after Thera erupted, it certainly began to lose its primacy around this time to Mycenae. If anything, SWB is guilty of simplification, which is to be expected in an elementary history text."


GREECE
"I bought this book because I had read the reviews here and I needed a history book to add to a homeschooling curriculum. I received it and as I was browsing the pages I focused on the ancient Greece pages, as I am originally from Greece. To my horror, the first inaccuracy was a perpetuated one that Alexander the Great was not greek. I let this slide because I know there has been a huge propaganda about this and the author may have bought on that. Then, I read about the Olympics and how they got their name from mount Olympus. This is again a common misconception, but the Olympics got their name from the ancient city of Olympia and any person who writes a history book should at least know that."

She implies that the modern Olympics have decended from the ancient Olympics in an unbroken line of tradition.




CELTS
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RXT3ABP5ENM6Y/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1933339004
"Third, although the Celts fall well within the time period of this book, they are mentioned on just a few pages that relate to Julius Caesar's military career and later in a short description of Boudicca's rebellion. The latter section is missing from the index, by the way. And she used the less-preferred spelling "Boadicea." Why were the Celts largely omitted from this book? They beat the daylights of the Romans in 370 BCE and motivated the Romans to transform their military strategies from the Greek phalanx to their own new and devastating style. The Celts' never-unified territory spanned Europe from Turkey to Ireland, but what we learn about them here is that "the people who lived in Britain were called Celts. They were tall, muscular, warlike men." Hmmm . . . I wonder how they managed to reproduce. This constitutes a serious omission of a major ancient civilization. They didn't even get a mention in the pronunciation guide."

NATIVE AMERICANS
"The most substantial error I found in Volume is that it says native North Americans ate wheat, a grain which was not actually introduced to North American until after 1600 A.C.E. This is a big deal because it's a high protein crop that helped make denser population and labour specialization possible in Europe, and for which there was no North American equivalent. I'm surprised this wasn't caught before the second edition."

PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Various commentors mentions problems with the chapter on the Peloponnesian War.  Some mentioned things omitted, and not enough being said about Pericles...but those aren't really errors, just choices about what to include.   One reviewer (a history teacher) said  "the story of Alcibiades contains many untrue statements. I am not even planning to use this chapter with my students. Instead we will be reading the story of Alcibiades from "Famous Men of Greece." .... An example of this problem in the activity book is the picture of the Spartan boy hiding the fox: he is wearing Roman armor. Ironically this is one of the better drawings in the book, but I hope it has been removed in the revised version."  Another commentor said "I studied the Peloponnesian War well enough to know that she is misleading about some things and flat out wrong about others. The author makes it sound as though the war consisted of Sparta marching over and waiting outside the Athenian walls... no mention at all of the Athenian Navy and that that was how they were fighting the war. There is also another mistake that is not just a misleading summary. She states that the plague (as in epidemic) in Athens is caused by fleas on rats. Wrong. We still don't know what *disease* it was, let alone how it was transmitted. She is thinking of the black death and it blows my mind that she could make this mistake."