The Kregel Pictorial Guide to Church History, Volume 1

Kregel Pictorial Guides

by Peter Dennis (Illustrator)

A full-color, illustrated overview of church history from the church's very beginnings through Medieval, Reformation, modern, and postmodern eras. A perfect introduction for general readers. (20040603)

Genres: Church History, History

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary magazines such as Look and Learn he studied illustration at Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds of books, predominantly on historical subjects. He is a keen wargamer and modelmaker. He is based in Nottinghamshire, UK.

Reviews

[David Crews PhD]

Visually and historically informative and most interesting! A great aid to understanding the dynamics of how our past has dove-tailed into the present. Fantastic resource!

[Adam T. Calvert]

For the price, this book was not really worth it. It's 24 pages including the copyright page and the index. And there comes a time when a survey can be so brief that it's really not helpful at all. When you're trying to say too much in too little time, it's probably best not to say anything. And I wish the author would've done that.

However, I will say I really enjoy having the 40" timeline. And the timeline itself is definitely worth having (although I wish they would sell it separately, even if it was the cost of the book). Oddly enough, the time line seems to come from a different perspective from that of the author of the book. (For instance, it refers to the "American War for Independence" rather than the "American Revolution" referred to in the book. These two references are kind of at odds with each other in regards to their interpretation of the events that transpired at that time in American History).

When I first received this book and first used just the timeline, I was impressed and was thinking of purchasing the author's other works in this series. However, after reading the actual book, I'm hardly convinced the rest of the series will be worth pursuing. Even with what's written in the book, his historical interpretations seem to be at odds with more fuller works on church history.

In other words...from my perspective, if you can purchase just the timeline, do it. It's a great visual aid! If you can't, but want the timeline, I'm really tempted to say buy the book anyway because the timeline is really pretty good!

But if timeline's aren't your thing, then there are plenty of other surveys of church history that are much better and more practical in scope and content. And I would recommend to stay away from this series.