The Rest is History by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook

Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for The Rest is History:

Historians gone wild.

Quick synopsis:

Basically, whatever Tom and Dom felt like writing down about history in various forms.

Fact for Non-History People:

The first formal celebration of Christmas wasn’t until the year 336. AD, obviously.

Fact for History Nerds:

Stanley Baldwin, a very rich British PM, donated a fifth of his family fortune (about 120,000 pounds) to help pay off British World War I debt.

My Take on The Rest is History:

Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook are drunk. Or at least, I assume they were drunk when they came up with the wonderfully random list of topics that became The Rest is History: The Book Not the Podcast (I came up with the subtitle myself).

Do you want to know who was the best Australian Prime Minister? How about the worst dinner parties ever? What was St. Patrick’s deal? How ridiculous is The Da Vinci Code? All of this information can be yours just by reading this fever dream of a history book. I laughed at nearly every page. I learned nearly every page. If you have a sense of humor, then this book is for you. If you kind of like history but get sleepy when you try to read it, then this is definitely for you.

Their list of the best dogs is absolute rubbish, though. Gelert is number one and it’s not even close.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and PublicAffairs.)

Verdict:

A lot of fun. Read it! Buy it here!