The Spiritual Pilgrim

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 ‒ America: The Covenant Nation ‒ comes directly from two volumes of American history I had published in 2021. But what you find here on this website is not only that same 1100 pages of text but also multitudes of pictures which are not in the printed work.

This section covers the history of America and its 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 hitting hard over those four centuries.

See the "About" selection above
for a quite substantial summary of these volumes
(or just click on the book photos above)

I also published in 2021 a 560-page Abridged Version of this same history: America's Story ‒ A Spiritual Journey.

The next section ‒ Western History to 1850 ‒ comes largely from the first volume of a history series entitle A Moral History of Western Society , just released in February of 2024. It covers the West's great political, social, cultural and intellectual legacy ‒ running from the early days 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 third section ‒ The World 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.

And again ‒ here too you will discover multitudes of pictures.

See the "About" selection above
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.

With yes ... multitudes of pictures!

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.

And of course pictures ... masses of pictures!

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.

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.