A Short History of the World in 50 Lies

A Short History of the World

by Natasha Tidd, Emily Feavor (Illustrator)

Taking readers on a global journey through human history, historian Natasha Tidd examines how lies can change the world around us, from Julius Caesar’s deceptive PR machine to the cover ups that caused Chernobyl.

From forgeries that created centuries worth of conflict and domination, such as The Donation of Constantine, the Protocols of Zion and the mysterious Testament of Peter the Great, to mass political and press cover ups including Britain’s Boer War concentration camps, a Pulitzer Prize winning whitewash of the Ukraine Famine and France’s infamous Dreyfus Affair.

Alongside these are examinations of how our retellings of history can turn fiction into fact , including The Spanish Inquisition’s deceitful legacy and the demonization of Chinese Empress, Wu Zetian. Plus, an in-depth look at how historic lies can still impact our lives today, such as the deadly legacy of America’s Tuskegee Experiment.

A Short History of the World in 50 Lies details the profound impact of this secretive side of history and shows that the truth really is stranger – and far more dangerous – than any fiction.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical, Audiobook, World History, Politics, Ebooks

288 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2023

Reviews

[boxer_dogs_dance · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was interesting and informative. I knew about a few of the incidents that received chapters like the Dreyfuss matter but I was familiar with less than 10 percent of the content. These are interesting stories and illuminate one of the ways governments manipulate people and steer history.

[Cristina Lazăr · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://carti.blog/2025/08/09/scurta-...

[Jungian.Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection takes us on a global journey through human history, examining the lies that have shaped the world around us.

Tidd discusses lies from 'The Ancient World' to 'The Twentieth Century' - lies that changed the tides of war, those feed by misogyny, media manipulations, religious persecution, financial corporations to those told by government hiding their faults. All of which led to people dying or to cover up the amount of atrocities committed in war.

From lies surrounding 'The Crimes of Empress Wu' (who was the first female emperor of China (Tang Dynasty - while she is considered one of the greatest emperors of the China because of her decisive character and her ability to get things done, she is still viewed still today as a conniving woman who killed even her own children to get to sit on the throne - but why do we come to that conclusions? what lies were told, what truths were hidden, are the current accounts and evidence of her life not from vitriolic takedowns written by people who did not support her rule?) to 'The Chernobyl Disaster' (where in pride and cost cutting was placed before the people's lives). I really enjoyed reading this collection.

I do have to say that I enjoyed reading this book. There are so many things that we are aware of as part of modern day history that we have not taken the time to dissect to see what part of it is actually true and what have been curated to feed the mass.

I would have appreciated this book a bit more if it was longer, there are so many cases that was not thorough discussed (but if it was longer it would probably have defeated the purpose of 'A Short History'. I will definitely be looking out for anything else that Natasha Tidd have written.

Thanks to Love Book Tours for making a copy of this book available to me

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each of the chapters in this book covers a lie or mistruth that has been passed down throughout history where the general belief is not what actually happened. The chapters are short giving a general overview of the case/story which means that anything that piques your interest can be explored further through other sources.

[Cav · Rating 2 out of 5]

"If you’re anything like me, then when you were growing up, your parents taught you not to lie. This is a fairly universal lesson – lying is bad... "

Despite being excited to start A Short History of the World in 50 Lies, the finished product managed to thoroughly bore me to tears...

Author Natasha Tidd is a historian specializing in 'untold history', mental health and gender. Creator of the pop-history website F Yeah History, Natasha is passionate about highlighting history's under-sung stories and making history accessible to everyone. She works as a history writer, researcher and consultant.

Natasha Tidd:


The book opens with a decent intro, and I had high hopes for what was to come. I am admittedly very particular about how engaging and lively the books I read are. Fault me if you will, but there's almost nothing worse in a book than an author who can't hold the reader's attention. Write what you will, but - for the love of God, please don't bore me...

The author drops the quote above in the book's intro, and it continues below:

"...That’s not to say we don’t lie; indeed, multiple studies have found that lying is an inherent part of human nature, and who hasn’t told a white lie to protect feelings or get out of a spot of trouble? Still, we continue to tell our children not to lie, and for good reason. Even when we put aside morals and ethics and just focus on the practicality of the thing, lying is more often than not a damaging practice that tends to spiral out of control, creating chasms and domino effects that are impossible to reverse. If this is the effect that lying can have on our individual lives, then you can imagine the immense impact it’s had on history."

She also lays out the scope of the book in this bit of writing:

"Over the next fifty chapters, we’ll traverse some of the darkest events in human history. At times it can feel inescapably bleak, but in that mire of lies there is always light. Because, when we peel back the lies of history, we can gain a better understanding of not only history itself but the legacies of the past we’re left with today. This isn’t so much a book about uncovering the truth, as it is one of untangling the web of deceit that hid it and looking at why that web was there in the first place."

In my experience (broadly speaking); books on history break into two distinct camps. Some are well-written, telling the reader an interesting story while placing a premium on continuity, cohesion, and flow. Unfortunately, these books tend to be few and far between. More often than not, the author rattles off places, dates, and names in a monotonous fashion, managing to bore tf out of the reader as they go. They rattle off an endless torrent of tedium and minutia; effectively losing the forest for the trees....

Unfortunately, this book was a good example of the latter, and not the former. The writing started OK in the intro, and then dove into the weeds right after, where it remained for the duration.

********************

I didn't like this one. My reviews are always very heavily rated on how engaging I found the book. Sadly, this one really missed the mark towards that end for me.
If it were any longer, I would have put it down...
I would not recommend it.
1.5 stars.

[Drew Peel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burning witches 👍🏻
Anti semitism 👎🏻

[Pete Flosse · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an interesting format and does carry an overall point, that history as it is told to us is a series of lies, omissions and biases, waiting to be untangled.
Sadly, the book is riddled with inaccuracies that I feel go beyond mere simplification for the sake of brevity, but enter the realm of falsehood. This, coupled with some outright mistakes (such as claiming the Byzantine Empire was the major power in the Baltics rather than the Balkans), things that really should have been caught before publishing, means that the book really only serves as a catalogue for interesting moments in history. If you want to actually learn about these moments, you should pick up a dedicated book and be properly informed.

[Joanna Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, heartbreaking and unforgettable, these 50 short cameos of historical lies, forgeries and coverups include Cicero's Philippics, the naming of the Spanish flu, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, The protocols of Zion, the Donation of Constantine, Britain's Boer War concentration camps, Mai Lai, the Dreyfus Affair, The Tuskegee syphilis experiments and so many more. I listened Harrie Dobby read it twice (her voice is a delight) and still felt like I could have listened again, there is just so much information packed in, with so much to process and think about.

(2025, reread, print this time)

[Bianca Duthie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a history buff but this has really captured my interest. I really like the variety within the overall topics of the chapters. Some really interesting things I'd never heard of and some I was shocked to find out they weren't how I knew them!
I preferred the final section with some of the more modern "lies" but found it all truly fascinating.
I love the size of the book, cover and layout.
I think there's a real audience out there for this kind of book and I'd happily read more like it!

[Christy Matthews · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book jumps around too much and generally lacks focus. Most of the 50 "lies" are only about five pages each, which often makes the book hard to follow when they cover some fairly obscure part of history. The book could also do a better job of providing a summary of each "lie" at the start of each section to focus the reader. Most of these "lies" are less of lies and more intentional progranda, hiding of truth by individuals or governments, or individuals faking their identities.

[Gemma Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an entertaining collection of some of History’s biggest lies. I really enjoyed reading this book and I learned so many new things. It’s a book that can easily be picked up and put down again and it is genuinely amazing how some of history’s liars were able to spin the truth to further their own courses and how some of these lies have continued on long after they have died. If you are interested in history or just like learning new, interesting facts then this book will really entertain you.

I received a gifted copy of this novel. This review is my honest opinion and written voluntarily.

[Delaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

quick and interesting read! i really enjoyed this one and i feel like i’ll need to read it again to soak in all the information. i also have tons of new fun facts!

[Olivia Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Britain really is a terrible bag of shit. The fact that history gets rewritten so often is abhorrent. I liked how honest this book was, it felt like everything school should have taught me, but didn't. 4*

[Khắc Tuấn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book is boring and sucks. It was not the war between "North Vietnam and South Vietnam, alongside its ally America". It was Vietnamese people defending their own land against foreign invaders, American.

[Zia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*
When I saw this book in The Works back in autumn, I thought: Well, it will certainly not hurt me to learn more about the world history for 5 quid. So glad I picked this up. Although it was leaning more towards European history, there were quite a few chapters from other continents and I loved to read about things you do not encounter in your usual mandatory history classes in school. The format and writing made it easy to read on my daily commute to work. If there were few more chapters from other continents added, this book would be absolutely perfect, but it was very near that anyway. So far my reading year started amazing.

[Jknodd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great overview of several historical events that I’ve never heard of (but really should be aware of). The author does equally well in terms of story telling (making the historical events almost read as fiction) but also tying it to how similar propaganda methods and retórica used today have always been around, and truly how, in some regards, we know very little of what actually happened.

I want to give this book a 4.5 (maybe even a five) but also realise I’ve been very positive to most books so far for 2024

[Jordy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book fits in a relatively modern trend of writing history, namely the global history movement.

Personally I think that global history is an interesting genre which makes history more accessible to people. For instance, this book covers a wide range of subjects and the writing is simple. The author chose to focus the book on famous lies and each lie has the chance of encouraging the reader to research and know more about a certain time and place.

Yet the simple writing can be a weakness as well. Some information that is given in the book is not fully compatibile with the actual facts and some of what is written is - to state bluntly - not true. For example, the story about the Malleus Maleficarum contains more fiction than fact: Spengler was a famous Dominican inquisitor in his time and Kramer simply added his colleagues name to the book, even though Spengler had nothing to do with the content. Unfortunately the author of this book claims Spengler was involved with the content, which we know is not true. There are several more of such cases of the author seemingly forgetting incredibly important information, too many cases for an informed reader to not notice.

There's also a focus on the political lies and issues, which are talked about more often as time progresses. Global history has a better chance of reaching more people if it covers as many angles as possible.

However, it's still a good book that's written quite well. I've learned about some new interesting stories, which made the book feel educational.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the summary of events that were informative but brief. Sort of like reading a podcast style bb version of events, covering basics but requires further research if you really want to learn more.

[Stephanie Molnar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. Skipped the 20th century chapter since I'm not interested in modern history. That being said, people claiming in other reviews that some of the stories are propaganda and not lies, um... what do you think propaganda is?

[Keen Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars!

One of the strongest points to emerge from these pages was how often and blatantly that history repeats itself and throughout so many different regions of the world too. This definitely grows more interesting as we go through the centuries.

I wouldn't say I loved this but I suppose it was OK in parts, and I did learn some new things too, but I found it quite dry, particularly in the first half, and there were some minor typos and inconsistencies, like saying the Hundred Year war last 112 years when it was 116.

So the secret to survival and er an easier a time of it through the ages seems to be avoid being born female, poor, Jewish or dark skinned don't be agnostic or atheist, basically choose your parents carefully.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly interesting!! Loved every single chapter. Histories lies unravelled by an exceptional woman (of course)

[Donna Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at how lies can change the world. Interesting tales of Julius Caesar’s early PR spin campaign through to the Chernobyl cover up . There are a few editorial mistakes which needed checking . An easy to dip in and out book ,but nothing revelatory .

[Louisa Woolley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting easily digestible history!

[Hanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

En reise i verdens historien og 50 løgner som former historien. Bra bok!

[Mackenzie Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.9⭐️

[jasi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5⭐️
Some of these were so interesting, some a bit boring. All in all not bad - but hard and long-winded to get through

[Rohan · Rating 5 out of 5]

beginning: haha monarchies are so silly
middle: wow thats a lot of corruption
end: i am incredibly disappointed with the world.

very good read, good flow, good detail, as someone who doesn't read a lot of history this was really engaging and interesting!

[Spikeybär · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short and interesting book with a few minor editorial and factual errors. In many ways Tim Phillips Truth is a superior version of the same stuff.

[Roo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous read though gets really depressing the closer it gets to today