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PLEASE NOTE: if you are using a cellphone you will want to go the alternate site: The Spiritual Pilgrim-2
This website is devoted to the revealing of the particular dynamics by which societies are formed, prosper, and then experience decline ... dynamics revealed not in laboratory experiments (societies cannot be experimented on) but instead revealed in the narrative of history ‒ ancient and modern.
The
first section listed on the left-hand column refers to a work I very
recently published (May 2025) a 283-page American history entitled Wake Up America!.
This history is focused on America's moral-spiritual
development and is designed to emphasize the need for America to
quickly get itself back on track as a nation covenanted with God to be
a "Light to the Nations" ... demonstrating how God wants all societies
to live and live gloriously Jesus's way.
Please note: going to this site will take you directly to a unique website
... where you will find the same textual, ebook and audio material
as the book itself ... plus numerous pictures as well!
The next section ‒ America: The Covenant Nation ‒ comes directly from two volumes (1100 pages) of American history I had published in 2021.
The first volume covers the history of America and its critically
important originating covenant with
God ... a covenant that has seen its ups and downs since its origins in
the early 1600s, but has always been critical to America's ability to
move forward in the face of some very deep challenges that have
impacted the nation deeply. This volume takes the reader through
the years of colonial development, years of trial and recovery as
a very distinct republic, and ends with the Great Depression of the
1930s
The second volume takes up the story with the rise of the dictators who
take the world into World War Two, explains the rise of America as a
superpower, and concludes with the problems of a deep moral-spiritual
divide that troubles deeply present-day America.
for a quite substantial summary of these volumes
directly to the same textual material
... plus numerous pictures as well!
I also published in 2021 a 560-page Abridged Version of this same history: America's Story ‒ A Spiritual Journey.
The next section ‒ A Moral History of Western Society ‒ also comes directly from two volumes (940 pages) of Western history I had published in February of 2024.
The first volume ‒ Western History to 1850 ‒ covers the West's great
political, social, cultural and intellectual legacy ‒ running from the
ancient times of Greece, Rome, Israel and early Christianity down to just
prior to the "Gilded Age" of imperial Britain, France, Germany,
Austria, Russia, America, etc. ‒ that is, to the mid-1800s. But again,
what you will find here is not only the same 461 pages of that first
volume but also multitudes of pictures not in the printed version.
The second volume ‒ The West since 1850
‒ comes largely from the second volume of that same Western history
series. It covers Western (and global) political, social, cultural and
intellectual developments since the mid-1800s ... which includes a lot
of the same material found in the later chapters of the American
history publication ‒ but with a much broader reach to the larger
Western world ... and even to the world beyond.
as the books ... plus multitudes of pictures.
for a quite substantial summary of these volumes
Then comes the section on World Cultures ‒ which reaches back to prehistoric paleolithic and neolithic societies, covers the rise of civilization in the Ancient East, then the development of Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, and European civilization ‒ and then summarizes the above sections on the arrival of modern history.
Then I bring to analysis the dynamics I have discovered, over my many years of looking into the matter, to be behind all social behavior ‒ present as well as past ‒ this is to say, actual "political science." The primary focus is on the Dynamics of the Rise and Fall of Societies ... and derivatively, what it is that a society must do in order to remain strong in this very competitive world of ours. And some fifteen different country (or dynasty) studies of some 10 to 15 pages each are introduced in the early part of the work in order to build a strong fact basis for the social analysis that follows.
The next section is one that I started in the late 1990s: some Twelve Country Studies (each in various stages of completion!) ranging from China in the East to America in the West ‒ extensive histories in some cases. The China history, for instance, constitutes over 100 pages of printed text ... and the American history, a "summarization" of my published material found in the sections above, is of a similar length.
The next section is another one that I started in the late 1990s ‒ in an effort to offer early Biographical References to online researchers. This section is divided into three parts: People of Ideas, People of Action, and then numerous In-Depth Biographical Sketches.
Likewise, the next section represents an effort to place on the internet as many of the Classic Pieces of Literature as possible ‒ in English translation of course, but often with the text in the original language placed alongside the English translation.
Being the lover of art ‒ and its ability to give graphic portrayal of the spirit of the times when it was created ‒ I have included here a vast collection of Artists and their Works reaching from prehistoric, Mesopotamian, and ancient Egyptian art ... down to the present.
This next section is mostly a Collection of Historical Documents ‒ but also maps, historical outlines, and even policy papers I previously assigned my students as part of their course work.
And ‒ at the request of others ‒ I have also included some of the French Material I developed when teaching the course at The King's Academy ... at least some of the basics. I also could not resist including pictures of the six trips I took with TKA students to Paris (and London) as part of this section. Enjoy!
This next section is a year-long Christian history I put together as a Confirmation Class for young Presbyterians I was pastoring. This was a combination of Biblical history and then simply Church history ‒ stretching over the centuries. I wanted these young teenagers (and their adult mentors working with each one of them) to have a clearer picture of the great spiritual legacy we Christians are privileged to possess ‒ not only to measure up to but also to love and enjoy.
I have also included here copies of The Bible in Various Forms: three English versions (NIV, RSV, and KJV), and a French, German, and Spanish version ‒ plus the older Latin Vulgate version, the Hebrew Old Testament, the Greek New Testament. And I included also the writings we class as the Apocrypha.
Then concluding the series ‒ as a way of explaining the background and character of this website ‒ I have included My Own Personal Story as a "Spiritual Pilgrim" ... also drawn from another publication of mine, which appeared also in 2021. I offer this simply as a way of presenting some perspective as to how and why I understand our history as I do ‒ and its particular meaning to us today.
So here too you will find the full text of the 260-page book but also multitudes of pictures which are not in the printed work.
for a quite substantial pictoral summary of this book
About the Author
Miles Huntley Hodges is a combination Georgetown “political realist” (M.A., Ph.D.) and a Princeton Seminary Evangelical (M.Div.) long-interested in America’s role in the world, once serving as a secular professor of international studies (while also a corporate political risk consultant and risk analysis teacher) ... and then by the grace of God a born-again Presbyterian pastor, an individual involved heavily in street and prison ministry as well as several typical congregational ministries. He "retired" into teaching American and international high school students the subject of social dynamics (the rise and fall of societies) using American and other cultures' histories as a "laboratory" – to bring the broad focus of God and society to the understanding of young minds.