I have this set and we love them! I don't agree with everything in them, but they cover many viewpoints and I love how they give the perspective of all people groups in them. They don't just talk about men and war. They talk about the lives of kids and women too and all ethnic groups. They talk about everyday life. They talk about art and music. Much of it is told in story form. I find them fascinating. They were made into a PBS documentary series.

🤯Thank you Michelle!! I was planning on buying these books but after your video, I am NOT going to anymore.

Wow. This was eye-opening. I wasn't planning on using this resource anyway, but I'm actually astonished that so many secular homeschoolers recommend this as a good US history spine 😖 Thank you once again for bringing some much needed substance to this KZfaq community. I'm so, so grateful to have found your channel.

I really appreciate this video as we actually have the set but I haven’t taken the time to read through everything. We will no longer be using this. Thank you!!!

I’ve considered using these books for our US history for a while and have heard all good things. This video has truly been eye opening. Thank you for sharing

Hi, great video as always. To offer a differing perspective. I don't think you need to purchase this resource. But, my background is in education with a Master's Degree and a concentration in history for the middle grades, but I took Master's classes with high school teachers as well. I was first introduced to this book about ten years ago when I began teaching social studies. My department head gave this to me and told me this was largely where our school district, one of the top ten ranked districts drew it's information and curriculum from. I read it and while I chose not to use this resource in my classroom as my base. I don't think you need to throw out the baby with the bath water. One of things that we our taught as teachers and as social studies teachers is to evaluate multiple resources and to provide students with a clear framework of how to evaluate primary, secondary, and supplemental resources for evidence of bias. I think a very constructive thing to do would be to take snippets of the book or sections like you have done and compare them to another resource such as the other book that you offered. In addition, you could create a compare and contrast diagram that examines each author's viewpoint. While this book obviously does not agree with your viewpoint, the reality is that we are doing our children a disservice when we pull resources or information both good and bad out of their hands without having them analyze and make their own sound judgement. We are not always going to be holding our children's hands and sitting directly next to them throughout every educational situation and setting to help them be able to determine bias nor is every resource they encounter in higher education or college not going to be present and without bias. I sat through many a number of college courses where books like this were actually the required course materials and I did my due diligence every class to offer counterpoints and to really take the time to dig and refute with other primary and secondary sources how material such as this is inaccurate.

Gah! Thank you so much, this was super helpful. I didn’t have plans to use this resource, but I’m happy to know that we won’t be missing a single thing by skipping it. And I had thought that there might be a chance that we would use her science, but now plan to steer clear of that as well! This was super helpful and I love that you showed us actual passages from the book.

I really appreciate you taking your time and making this video. I wish there was more reviews like this about other curriculums to show ppl what is good and what is not so good before ppl buy the curriculum and find out after buying it.

Gosh the world needs more humans like you in it!!!! You truly inspire me to be more inclusive and make sure I use materials with as little bias as possible! Thank you for this review…it was certainly in my list of things I thought we were going to be using in a few years. Definitely not now!

Wow. I had no idea. I’ve seen this recommended many times for secular homeschoolers but I haven’t checked it out myself. I appreciate your frankness about this! I’ll be crossing it off my list.

Thank you so much for sharing. Many promote this resource, and I can clearly see it’s not for us!

In my experience a lot of people who use the label 'secular home schoolers' for themselves, are more concerned about being anti religion rather than having robust curricula. I am often shocked by what pretty things people will use but have very little substance. I am also shocked by so many secular homeschoolers using TGATB and telling others in facebook groups that it is 'not that Christian...you can hardly notice it...' I wanted to be a TGATB fan as it is so pretty BUT I can't find a map of pregression or the rhyme and reason with the structure... In general I don't ever follow a curriculum completely but just use them as a base to plan our learning from.

I’m glad you reviewed this book. The fact that this is so widely used in the HS community but these biases haven’t been discussed by others reviewing this same resource is troubling. Your channel is a breathe of fresh air.

I had picked this up when I saw it at the used book store because I’d seen it on so many secular lists. After reading it I donated it for many of the reasons you mentioned, and decided not to even look at the rest. It also tainted my view on her science books, which I had originally been so interested in. I also have the Rethinking Columbus book and think it’s great.

Thank you for sharing this!

Yes! Gross! I can’t remember what I saw years ago but only one super quick glance I took was enough. THANK a YOU, Michelle for making this video.

Thank you for sharing this video. I think you did a nice job!

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. You are the first person I’ve heard discuss this. I was considering this as a spine. What history did you decide to use?

I’ve always heard this series was problematic by fellow homeschoolers, so I always avoided it. Now I clearly see why! I don’t understand how people can use such biased history garbage.

I had heard so many good things about this curriculm, and though it wasn't on my radar with much better resources out there, I did check it out at the library incase I might use it as a suppliment. But I had this same rant about it!! It's very eurocentric, innacturate, and offensive to bipoc peoples. That pattern is atleast the first two books of this series, so I'd say the whole collection is like this. This is how I feel about Generations curriculm too. We are secular and non-religious, and Generations is heavily religious. They're curriculm is primirly scripture - which is totally fine if you're religious and implimenting faith into your cirruclum. I am clearly not their target audiance. But I somehow stumbled on it and had to probe because they have a whole history series that is 'Taking Africa for Jesus' or 'Taking Egypt for Jesus', ect. They painted people of Africa as dirty, living in mud huts, needing support and gods guidance because they're sinful and riddled with AIDS. It's just one long bias indoctrination with no actual facts. We do our children a disservice not teaching them real and honest history. It's going to make someone uncomfortable, but telling a false narrative is damaging and neglectful to our childrens education. Not to mention the way they precieve the world and interact with other people.

This is why I tend to get Savvas textbooks off Rainbow Resources. Oak Meadow is pretty good too. I almost got this set but won’t be buying because I dislike history books with opinions and bias. Thanks for pointing out the difference between real history and biased history. And Indians is an outdated term. Most of us like indigenous or the name of our tribe.

thank you so much for this review! I would be so mad if I got this.

I chose to skip The First Americans because like you, I try to use resources from created by the people/people groups we are learning about. But I have been using Book 2, Making the Thirteen Colonies with my 11yo this year, and it has been a great fit for us. The author does plainly state her opinion frequently; I'm ok with that as I appreciate it when people own their bias outright instead of hiding it. I would call this series solidly moderate/liberal in its philosophical bias, and after long deliberation, decided that is my preference for a spine. Just wanted to offer my 2 cents for consideration here. Great, provocative video!

I looked at this series briefly and was turned off pretty quickly as well. I'm thinking about using the Core Knowledge US history textbook (for middle school I think) as a spine but then pulling in Build Your Library level 5 resources. If you have experience with that Core Knowledge text, I'd love to hear about it, but I think your kids haven't hit that level yet so probably not. That rethinking columbus book looks amazing.

So helpful!

So glad you did this! Unbelievable…

A big thank you from a non-American Critical Thinking and American Studies teacher!!

I'm a Dutch 36yo single dude without kids so I really don't know why this was recommended to me haha. But before you started talking about bias I was already expecting a too much of a US centric history and glorification. Just by the cover and the name. I finished typing this just when you opened the book and got to the first point lol.

Yikes!!! Thanks for sharing this!

As a Canadian I wouldn't use this anyways but that's crazy. I was curious what was wrong with it but I have only seen 1/3 of the video and I can already say I wouldn't use it if I was American.

I haven't seen this resource. The lack of cultural respect from early Christian settlers is mine blowing! If you have time, watch my term 4 homeschool update. If you can't watch the whole thing, watch the seminary life chapter. I talk about how, as a culture, we're all living out someone else theology and how we messed it up with the genocide of the Indigenous people and the slave trade. Why wouldn't people be resistant to Christianity? We're constantly living in a state of atonement. We say we believe in Jesus. We say we believe he died on the cross so that we don't have to take on the punishment. Why in the world are we constantly trying to make others small.....kill others...... Take away rights of others, So that we are lifted up. I just want people to wake up! 😭 This is totally a burden of mine. We aren't living out truth and subsequently we (as a culture) have no real concept of what it means to be a follower of Christ --- to be "Christian". 🔥You got me fired up Michelle! 😆

Thanks for this review. I never knew. Almost purchased it.

Thank you for this detailed breakdown. I purchased them as we were beginning and trying out different curricula. We’re several years in and I’m sure all of this would have jumped out at me when we got to them but this simply puts it in this sell pile for me. We’ve stopped books when we find problematic white washing resources and it has started conversations where we compare and contrast just how biased resources can be. But glad to avoid it had I planned a whole unit or semester around it and encountered this

Oh no. I just bought the whole set.

Hi, I heard that term woke what that's really mean?

Oof. Thank you for highlighting this. I had bought this set to look through, because I had heard that it offered a detailed perspective on US history... but now I am going to reconsider this. These go beyond being problematic... this is whitewashed eurocentric revisionism. Gross. Thank you for your input.

Native American Indian homeschool mama, we like these books but I prefer Christian American history viewpoints, it’s more accurate to my history. Thank you for sharing

that's why you have supplement materials. there are books that are more native Americans bias.

wow, i have seen this recommended so many times! I'm shocked it's this bad. I thought her history of science series looked promising but I am also no longer interested after this

One of the absolutely worst reviews I've encountered on here. You read half of the first book in a 10 part series and thought that you would talk about *its* bias? Good Lord. I'll point out 3 issues here, and leave the rest to parse for other people - but, generally speaking, the biggest bias that comes through here is yours. You are unable to, apparently, even *try* to give Hakim a benefit of the doubt, regularly in just a 20 minute video, *completely* misinterpreting her. 1. You are comparing a broad, general history of the US (intended for young, i.e., pre-HS, readers!) with a specific, focused history book on one issue that was aimed . Of course one book is going to have more details and have the space to dive into complex subjects! This is a complete failure to distinguish between text purpose. 2. The broader series Hakim does absolutely couldn't be seen as undercutting slavery or the experiences of indigenous people, unless you cherry pick passages and ignore the broader way she treats the subject. Hakim actually popularized and brought out a lot of neglected history, especially of NAs in the US. 3. Just one example of the illiteracy of this review. You spend a *lot* of time talking about how Hakim supposedly calls the NA tribe wasteful regarding the Buffalo, completely missing the point she was making, that it was *not* the NA tribe that was wasteful but the settlers that came later. Again, if you bothered to read beyond half of the first book in a 10 book series, you might have realized that. Very disappointing review, and I'd point anyone interested in the series to the many other reviews out there. It's highly rated for a reason.

This is horrible! Thanks for the review & the examples.

This history series by Hakim was one of the worst "history" books we ever came across during our homeschooling journey. We returned the series to the curricula company we bought it from. We returned them for different reasons than you. Imagine being from a modern society and seeing people living 4000 years in the past. We're talking stone age! They hadn't even made it to the bronze age yet. The spaniards massacred the cannibal indians, not the group being cannabalized. No one gets a pass from the slavery. Spaniards enslaved jews and they were no in the stone age. Indians also enslaved other Indians. btw, most don't mind being called Indians and don't care to be called "indigenous people" or "native Americans". Just like black people don't want to be called BIPOC. There's so much to touch on this video, but I'd like to recommend Collapse by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel also by Diamond. and just for a bonus White Gold by Giles Milton. They're much better than Hakim's books. =) I'm very curious to know why you're homeschooling. Your video was recommended in my feed. so I'm brand new to your channel.

I wish you would have done a video on what you do suggest and why instead of bashing this resource. If you have a beef with other you tubers then don’t watch.