Quick Take
- Narration: Jim Weiss completes his run through all four Story of the World volumes with the same deliberate, warmly educational register that defines the series.
- Themes: Early modern history across all continents, colonization and encounter, the making of the modern world from 1600-1850
- Mood: Reflective and wide-ranging, the narrative now carrying the full weight of the series’ accumulated world-history project
- Verdict: A strong third volume covering the most consequential centuries for understanding the contemporary world, essential for families working through the full curriculum.
There is something quietly ambitious about the decision to sell 1.3 million copies of a world history for children and then release a revised edition. It means the author examined a successful work, found it could be better, and chose to improve it rather than simply continue collecting royalties from the original. Susan Wise Bauer’s revised edition of the Early Modern Times volume signals a seriousness of purpose that matches what she delivers: a genuinely intelligent narrative history of the years 1600 to 1850 for elementary students, narrated by Jim Weiss in the same measured voice that has carried the series from ancient nomads through the fall of Rome and the medieval world.
The years 1600 to 1850 are, in many respects, the most difficult portion of world history to teach well to children. The period is defined by encounters, between Europeans and everyone else, between colonial projects and indigenous civilizations, between the economies built on enslaved labor and the moral arguments eventually deployed against them. A history that covers this period honestly must engage with the mechanics of colonization, and a history for children must do so in ways that are accurate without being developmentally inappropriate.
The Revised Edition’s Commitment to Global Coverage
The synopsis for this volume emphasizes what the revision reinforces: children need to learn about people around the world, not just Europe. The years 1600 to 1850 are precisely when that global perspective becomes both most important and most challenging. This is the era of the Mughal Empire’s peak and decline, the Qing Dynasty’s consolidation of China, the Ottoman Empire’s long confrontation with European powers, the Atlantic slave trade and the societies built on it, and the beginnings of the revolutions, American, French, Haitian, Latin American, that reshaped political philosophy and governance globally. Bauer covers all of it.
Jim Weiss’s narration carries this breadth with the same technique evident in the earlier volumes: he follows Bauer’s prose rather than imposing a uniform narrator’s tone, allowing the shifting register of the material to come through in how individual sections are paced and colored. The Haitian Revolution requires a different emotional register than the navigation of the Cape route, and Weiss allows that difference to land rather than smoothing it into uniform educational narration.
What the Revision Actually Changes
Families who used the original edition and are considering the revised version will encounter updated content, refined coverage, and clearer narrative connections between events. The homeschool community that uses this series extensively praises the revision for depth without condescension. One reviewer noted that a 75-year-old found these books filled in gaps in their own historical knowledge while remaining entirely readable, which is perhaps the most efficient endorsement a children’s history can receive, since it indicates that the content is substantive rather than simplified to the point of inaccuracy.
The 11 hours and 25 minutes runtime is the longest of the three volumes in the series reviewed here, which reflects the density of material in these centuries. The short chapter structure that works throughout the series continues here, making the full runtime manageable when spread across the school year in curriculum use, or across multiple car journeys for families using the audio more casually.
Who Should Listen and Who Should Skip
Families progressing through the Story of the World series in sequence will want this volume. It covers the period most directly relevant to understanding how the contemporary world took shape, and Bauer’s insistence on global coverage makes it a better foundation than most standard curricula for children who will eventually study modern history in depth. New listeners would benefit from starting with Volume 1 to understand the series’ method, though this volume is more self-contained than the medieval volume by necessity. Anyone considering the original rather than revised edition for cost reasons should note that the revision reflects Bauer’s own improvements to a text that was already strong.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this revised edition differ from the original Story of the World Volume 3?
The revised edition incorporates Bauer’s updates to content, coverage, and narrative connections developed since the original publication. The homeschool community that uses this series extensively tends to recommend the revised edition for new purchases. The revision reflects the author’s own assessment of where the original could be strengthened.
Does Volume 3 address slavery and colonization in a way appropriate for elementary students?
Yes, and this is one of the volume’s genuine strengths. The period from 1600 to 1850 cannot be covered honestly without addressing the Atlantic slave trade, colonial dispossession, and their consequences. Bauer handles these topics with age-appropriate directness, present and accurate rather than sanitized, but not graphically detailed for the elementary audience.
Is Jim Weiss’s narration consistent with the earlier volumes in the series?
Weiss narrates all four volumes of Story of the World, providing the kind of consistent voice across the series that allows families to move from one volume to the next without adjustment. His approach in Volume 3 is identical in register and method to Volumes 1 and 2.
At 11 hours and 25 minutes, is this volume designed for a single extended listen or distributed curriculum use?
The volume is designed for distributed use across a school year in curriculum contexts. The short chapter structure allows natural stopping points for daily lessons. Families using the audio informally will find the cumulative runtime manageable when spread across multiple sessions rather than approached as a single extended listen.
