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Punic Wars & Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Teaching

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Punic Wars and Culture Wars is not just for history teachers or professors. Ben House is gifted in articulating history as a story with wit, humor, and facts. An enjoyable read for every individual. Ben is conversational and opens the eyes to a new view of history. Ben has written a work that displays the significance of history on our past, present, and future. Although my career is not teaching history, I now understand that we are all history teachers in an aspect.

Here is a volume for teachers and students of history. The author, a history teacher in a Christian school, writes from a perspective that history is meaningful and relevant.
In twenty-six informative essays, House spans the scope of history from the Greek era into the twentieth century through a number of events (several of which have been long forgotten under the dust of time). He consistently shows the abiding relevance of history and applications from history for today. Teachers can learn much about integrating Christian thinking into this subject. Students can profit by learning about the events and people he covers.
This volume is well-written in a very personable style. It is an enjoyable and educational work.

Ben has a love for history and, after reading this book, you will too....unless of course you don't like to read period. He gives us essays on history, historians and culture...all written with his usual sense of humor. I think his "Annotated Bibliography" is worth the price of the entire book - there he gives comments on each author/historian and a synopsis of their books. Great! Mr House will make you laugh but he will also give you, I believe, a love for reading - even those books I used to think were so dry - history (which I now confess, I love). As an earlier reviewer of this book (written on the back of the book) has said: "Ben House is an experienced connoisseur who brings forth an abundance of vintage samplings from a well-stocked cellar. Like choice wine, the book is hard to set down once you tasted it." I agree! Pass me another bottle, please.

~Punic Wars & Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Teaching~ written by classical Christian educator Joe Ben House is a striking anthology of essays about history, literature, the classics, culture and the incidental culture wars. Speaking in similar vein as Douglas Wilson who authored The Case for Classical Christian Education, House offers an engaging read as he takes his readers on an intellectual odyssey.

With a characteristic southern wit, a bombastic iconclastic flavor, this man of letters demonstrates a remarkable depth of knowledge and brings moral clarity to the study of culture and history. What is more, with all of the insipid cultural Marxist, Progressive and Straussian materials out there, its a sea change to get perspectives of culture, historiography and pedagogy from a man far removed from the political Left.

Drawing insight from C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and possessed of a keen love of history, Ben House has assembled some remarkable insights amidst his many years of study. This book is definitely worth considering for Christian students of history, and more especially classical Christian educators.

I majored in history in college. I teach public school students every day through a released-time education ministry. I am a student of theology and a minister of the gospel. I read books obsessively. Thus, I knew that this was a book I must read when I read the title: Punic Wars and Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Teaching. I was right.

This book is a beautiful whirlwind of history, theology, philosophy of education and more. Buy this book because you need to read about the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes of Malta and what their victory in the siege of Malta against the Ottoman Turks can teach us today. Buy it because what other book discusses the Iliad of Homer, The importance of J. Gresham Machen, the impact of Irish Monks on civilization, the religious aspects of the War for Independence and the Civil War with such knowledge and Christian perspective.

This book did several things for me. First, it helped shape how I look at history. As a Christian with a love for history and theology, I am not blind to a theological and Christian exploration of the past, and I am conscious of Christian Worldview implications for history...but Ben House helps mold and shape that understanding like a great teacher should. The second, and perhaps the best thing this book did (and I believe the impact that House would most want), it made me buy a bunch of books. Seriously, if you don't want to buy 10 new books and expand your Amazon wish list by 2 pages, do not read this book. House reviews books, extols such thinkers as Christopher Dawson, R.J. Rushdoony, James Jordan, Francis Schaeffer, Gary DeMar and many, many, many more.

If you are at all interested in history, theology, worldview, literature, etc...you need to get this book. It is a page turner full of stories that mold and shape the mind of the reader while teaching him how to read the inevitable stack of books he/she will purchase after reading this one.