A History of the World in 51 Heroes and Villains

by Tom Holland, Dominic Sandbrook

'The world's most successful history podcast ... Holland and Sandbrook have pretty much reinvented popular history for the modern age' The Times
'The history publishing phenomenon of my lifetime' New Statesman

From the award-winning podcast The Rest is History and Sunday Times bestselling authors Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook comes a riotous deep dive into history’s biggest heroes and most notorious villains

Welcome to a shadowy realm where the divide between the noble and the nefarious isn’t quite as clear as it seems. Where supposed saints appear suspiciously traitorous, and so-called scoundrels reveal unexpected glimmers of virtue. Prepare for sword fights, scandals and enough moral ambiguity to make Machiavelli blush – from the imperial court of eleventh-century Japan to the studios of twentieth-century Hollywood.

Along the way, Holland and Sandbrook debate questions like:
-Was Caligula an irredeemable monster or history’s favourite scandal magnet?
-Was Joan of Arc a saintly saviour or a dangerous heretic?
-Was Wojtek the bear a true Second World War hero or simply a cuddly mascot?
-Was Elizabeth I a true Virgin Queen or just brilliant at branding?

So polish your armour, don your villainous moustache and get ready to choose a side in the ultimate showdown between history’s greats and rogues...

Genres: Nonfiction, History

432 pages, Hardcover

Published September 10, 2026

About the author

Tom Holland is an English historian and author. He has written many books, both fiction and non-fiction, on many subjects from vampires to history.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Holland was born near Oxford and brought up in the village of Broadchalke near Salisbury, England. He obtained a double first in English and Latin at Queens' College, Cambridge, and afterwards studied shortly for a PhD at Oxford, taking Lord Byron as his subject, before interrupting the post graduate studies and moving to London.

He has adapted Herodotus, Homer, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio 4. His novels, including Attis and Deliver Us From Evil, mostly have a supernatural and horror element as well as being set in the past. He is also the author of three highly praised works of history, Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium.

He is on the committee of the Society of Authors and the Classical Association.

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A valiant attempt to wrangle world history that works well for the more modern eras but falls flat whenever things get intricate or unfamiliar (summing up the chaos and crisis of Caligula's Roman Empire in six pages sells it more than slightly short!) And seeing a typo turn Harold Holt Austrian annoyed this Antipodean.

[Lottie C · Rating 1 out of 5]

1⭐️

Found multiple passages that were plagiarised or very closely paraphrased from Wikipedia articles on the subject in question. How did this get to publication? You’re better off just reading the Wikipedia pages of the people you’re interested in yourself.

[Clive Lillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, but sized chunks of important people in history. A ‘gateway drug’ for broader history if you will. Also, very amusing writing style from Dom and Tom. I’ll read more…