The Rest is History

“A fun and easy read...the authors’ sense of humour, combined with what feels like bottomless knowledge of their subject, really does make history seem interesting, enjoyable and even fun...it’s quite different from other history books. Holland and Sandbrook’s approach to asking curious questions, and then answering them, takes the reader on an idiosyncratic ride through history...The Rest is History is most certainly a readable book. It’s educational without being didactic, and thought provoking without being too taxing.”

“These two bespectacled, middle-aged bookworms have somehow made history alluring, borderline sexy.”

“I recently gave my dad a copy of The Rest Is History, the printed spinoff to the podcast hosted by Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland. The man absolutely wolfed it down. He’d never heard the podcast before, but the book’s tone—bitty, authoritative pop history—was like a cruise missile aimed directly at his brain stem.”

“A wacky collection of historical musings, charts, wildly random Top 10 lists, and illustrations by Adam Doughty that are as irreverent as they are hilarious (just like the podcast)...Laughter and chuckles abound, making this a jolly, informative read for the history fan and neophyte alike.”

“This compilation of the historically odd and downright wacky is the book version of their popular podcast...Clever, lighthearted history from serious historians.”

“Reasonable people might well have been turned off revisionist history by Ridley Scott’s dull, flat, thin cinematic version of Napoleon’s life. An antidote lies close to hand, in the form of a book-length write-up of the popular podcast, The Rest Is History.”

“A book to gift every history buff.”

“As a way to learn big chunks of history in a fast and entertaining way, this written version is arguably even more effective than its popular audio parent.”