Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, hosts of “The Rest is History.”
I’ve previously mentioned my favorite podcast ever: “The Rest is History.” I’ve only mentioned it in passing, though, and have meant for some time to say more about it in a separate post.
And now I have the perfect news peg for doing so.
Apple, which provides the podcast app through which I listen regularly to hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, has named this brilliant gem its 2025 Show of the Year.
And rightly so. I had never heard it before this prize-winning year, but I can attest that what I have heard stands far above any podcast I’ve heard previously. As Apple said:
Apple is proud to celebrate The Rest Is History with the Apple Podcasts Award for Show of the Year, a recognition that honors a show that demonstrates quality and cultural impact in podcasting. Produced by Goalhanger, the series has captivated a global audience with its witty, insightful, and endlessly entertaining exploration of the past, becoming the first UK-based show to be named Show of the Year.
Hosted by acclaimed historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, The Rest Is History has become a fixture at the top of the charts worldwide by bringing history’s biggest moments to life. From the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, to the sinking of the Titanic, the hosts blend deep expertise with gripping storytelling and unexpected humor to make complex subjects accessible and compelling for millions of listeners…
Absolutely. I don’t know about those millions of listeners, but I certainly love it. And in my opinion, their audience should be in the billions — or at least, whatever the number of people who can understand English well enough to follow.
And not just because I think everyone should enjoy the same things I do. As I’m always saying, the failure to understand history is possibly the greatest problem facing our country today. Not that Americans were in general great historians in previous generations. But the gross ignorance today is more dangerous than ever, because we live in a time when dimly-perceived history is one of the favorite weapons of the warring tribes into which our once-great society has been divided. The armies of left and right charge again and again into battle waving their opposing misconceptions like so many heavy, dull swords.
It’s not about names and dates, or about which tribe got wronged by which other tribe in the past, but about understanding. It’s about perceiving and accepting, on a deep level, the people who came before us, and lived normal human lives day after day, just as we do. They’re not black and white object lessons, they’re people, like our families and friends.
And their stories are fascinating. And sometimes hilarious as well. Apple mentions these guys’ “unexpected humor.” Well, it’s not unexpected at all once you get to know these guys. They are brilliant historians, and so comfortable with their material that they fully appreciate the human comedy they are telling about. And while they don’t neglect the serious stuff, sometimes they go off on wonderful digressions about the really fun stuff.
You’ll hear that if you listen to this one short (half an hour, compared to the usual hour) episode they released this week to celebrate their award. They review some of their favorite episodes this year such as:
- “A show on the Congo” that brought Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” to life.
- A several-parter on Peter the Great. (Speaking of humor, they spent a lengthy digression discussing Peter’s buddy Augustus the Strong, King of Poland. They spoke less about his reign than about the fact that he was a champion fox-tosser. No, really, that was a sport. NOTE: If you’re a member of PETA, you probably won’t enjoy this bit.)
- The Medici
- “We did the Caesars, the early Caesars, all the mad ones.” (This took off on a recent book of Tom’s recent book, a new translation of the Suetonius classic.)
- Female writers in the imperial Japanese court around the year 1000 “that was an absolute banger, wasn’t it?”
I became besotted with this show in April, when I ran across it in the middle of their four-part series on the year 1066, a year that of course has tremendous meaning to these two Brits. I immediately found that the site allowed me to go back and hear the previous episodes in the series — and for that matter every one of the more than 800 episodes since the show began.
I hadn’t listened long before I signed up to become a member of the show, which means I don’t have to “tune in next week” to hear the rest of the current series. I also get to hear their bonus episodes either riffing further on the current topic, of going far off the track on something they enjoy talking about.
All that is well worth $6 a month. Go give it a listen. You’ll be glad you did. You’ll also walk away smarter. You could start with the one celebrating their award.
Oh, and as Americans, don’t be put off by their constant “Bully for England” shtik. They worry about that a bit, although it doesn’t stop them:
Tom: What makes us particularly humble is that we are the first non-American show ever to win show of the year. So it’s a victory not just for us, but for Britain.
Dominic: Yeah, in a very real sense, for Britain.
Tom: Yeah. So Dominic, I’m a bit worried that our tone of British smugness may have scared away lots of readers who are tuning in wondering what the fuss is all about, and they’ve never actually listened to us before, so why don’t we just talk a little bit about what we do….”
Which they go on and do. Then, to celebrate the giver of the award, they riff on the Top Five Apples in History. Give it a listen…
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The Rest is History is almost exclusively focused on European history, especially the history of the British isles. There are very, very few episodes that cover any other part of the world. It’s title might just as well be The Rest Doesn’t Matter.
While it was running, I enjoyed Backstory with the American History Guys. Though it ended in 2020, all the episodes are still available online: https://backstoryradio.org/
NPR’s Backstory is also quite good in its handling of numerous historical topics.
The History Guy also does a respectable job with a variety of topics: https://www.youtube.com/@TheHistoryGuyChannel
And the Washington History Seminar does some very good interviews and discussions focusing on specific new books about history: https://www.youtube.com/@washingtonhistoryseminar2510/videos
Plus, lest we forget, there’s this state’s own Walter Edgar’s Journal.
Beyond that, here’ a list of the 100 “best history” podcasts. Surely there’s something there for every taste: https://podcast.feedspot.com/american_history_podcasts/
Thanks for sharing, Ken. I hope some of those will be interesting to people who lack understanding of the world and why it is the way it is.
But I hope you can assure us that your “American History Guys” aren’t really “The Rest Doesn’t Matter Guys.” They sound a bit ethocentric…
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. For my part, my own ignorance about the history closest to me — the histories of nations that helped form the one I live in — is so appalling that I don’t count ANY time spent on American, British or European history as time wasted. I’ve lived most of my life already, and I’m conscious that I won’t know all the things I should know, as a good citizen who can vote with understanding, about the people and ideas that formed my community, by the end of this life. So I keep plugging at them.
And Tom and Dominic are helpful with that — along with books and such — and they make the process enjoyable. I’m hoping they might help someone who knows zippo about the subject actually get interested.
Hence the post…
For my part, I’m going to check out Backstory first, because those “Guys” sound a bit like my guys…
It’s quite a shame that so many college educated people who claim to have studied history fall back into the laziness of calling everyone Hitler or Nazis or fascists. There are no Nazis in power today. And Hitler doesn’t have a beach house at Mar-a-Lago. I don’t give any credence to anyone who uses those terms in 2025.. because doing so just make the rest of their arguments seem suspect.
Learning about history is fine but rarely, if ever, does it have connection to modern times. Times change, technology changes, global dynamics change. The number of variables that have evolved over the years means most history is just interesting for the sake of being interesting stories. There’s no sense pining for the “good old days” because those good old days had their own set of problems that don’t apply to today. The Founding Fathers would certainly come up with a different Bill of Rights if they had any idea what might be coming down the pike. Can you imagine them thinking this one sentence would generate so much vitriol for two and a half centuries? “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” And this one sentence probably was never intended to create a nation with a 37 trillion dollar debt. “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
I prefer to live in the present and move forward.
Who are these “college educated people who claim to have studied history,” just to be specific?
Gee, it took only 10 seconds of Google search to find this guy:
Chris Kluwe – a former NFL player and political activist … “He graduated in 2005 with a double major in political science and history from UCLA”.
Or if you don’t like that, how about J.B. Pritzker, the Governor of Illinois? You think he studied any history when he got his degree in political science at Duke?
Or, best of all, here’s a link to an op-ed by one of your faves, Max Boot ( Cal Berkley Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1991 and Yale University with an MA in Diplomatic History)… Maybe I’m misinterpeting the headline: “Op-Ed: The Nazi echoes in Trump’s tweets”
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-boot-trump-reaction-to-orange-county-nc-firebombing–20161017-snap-story.html
I mean if you want me to collect the names of every white liberal arts educated college graduate who took history classes who also think Trump is Hitler and MAGA is Nazism all over again, let me know.
Waiting to see if this will be approved.
Thank you, Doug.
And while I knew as soon as you mentioned his name that whatever Max Boot said on the subject would be reasonable and well-supported, I took about 10 seconds myself to confirm it. I’ll quote the second and third grafs:
Well stated and well reasoned. And his analogy to the Reichstag fire is logical and fair…
People like to invoke the “Hitler rule” to shut up other people trying to use that particularly recognizable figure from history in making a point.
It sounds like a reasonable rule, since the Führer is an exceptionally awful example.
But of course, Trump is an exceptionally awful example himself. He hasn’t tried to murder all the Jews, but he is unique among American presidents. Startling, shockingly unique. I know you don’t believe that. You see most politicians as horrible and contemptible, so he doesn’t stand out to you. But you’re wrong there. No one has ever even gotten close to that office who was anywhere nearly as grossly unfit for the job.
Note that he is not saying Trump is Hitler. He is saying that tweet is disturbingly like that Hitler message. No, he doesn’t call his adversaries Untermenschen, but I suppose that’s mainly because he doesn’t know the word. He just goes ahead and calls them “animals.” And then he launches into his lies. Hitler didn’t have to lie, because he was commenting on something that the average German would find reprehensible on its face.
Hitler didn’t try to drag in a famous Marxist bogeyman to blame (perhaps simply because he wasn’t at war with Stalin until 1941). But Trump, with no justification whatsover, dragged in Hillary Clinton, simply because his kind of Republican despises her with an irrational fury. In his twisted universe, associating her with it makes the firebombing worse somehow.
Hillary herself, being a more or less normal grownup, responded to the firebombing by saying, “The attack on the Orange County HQ @NCGOP office is horrific and unacceptable. Very grateful that everyone is safe.”
So yeah, you can seen how a person would see the analogy between Trump’s statement and Hitler’s…
The comments above suggest a rather paltry understanding of how historians have gone about the business of studying and interpreting the phenomena of Nazism (and fascism more broadly) and therefore are a poor basis for the argument, also presented above, that the study of history has little value to society.
I disagree. And, thankfully, you have no way to prove me wrong.
History is narrative, not a guidebook. Much of history is made up to fit the narrative.
History can be factual – as in the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski… whether that was a good thing is an unproveable opinion.
History is time and place and a million variables that don’t translate into today’s world. It’s fine to read about it if you enjoy the stories but it doesn’t affect the world we live in today.
I watched the Netfix show Death by Lightning about the assassination of James Garfield and found it entertaining… but it offers no relevance to today unless you like the idea of a federal government funded primarily by tariffs.
You have to read the book, Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. It’s wonderful.
The TV series was a disappointment to me, because so much of what made the book great was missing. It wallows too much in Charles Guiteau’s derangement and other things that aren’t particularly relevant to story. I got the feeling that Matthew Macfadyen’s agent had obtained a contract that allowed him endless opportunities to show off his acting chops.
So what? Assassins are always whack jobs. And one of the main points of the book is that while he shot Garfield, HE didn’t kill him. SPOILER ALERT: The man most responsible for the president’s drawn out, excruciating death was the physician who seized control of his “care” and denied him diagnosis and treatment that would have saved him.
I haven’t finished the series, but I’m in the third of four episodes and have yet to encounter key figures in the story, such as Dr. Joseph Lister and — especially — Alexander Graham Bell. So far it’s all about the narrow worlds of politics and the twisted mind of Guiteau.
By contrast, Millard’s book was mind-expanding as a portrait of our remarkable country when it was in its upswing.
You say history is about “the stories,” and are fine if they “entertain” us. No. History is the source of understanding of the people, events and ideas that formed the world in which we live. History is essential to people living in a self-governing country. It is the answer to the question, Why are things as they are? That answer is essential to any effort to make today’s world better — or at least learning to live in it.
There’s not nearly enough even accomplishing the simple task of relating what an extraordinary man Garfield was. Which is a shame, because the series has a wonderful actor — Michael Shannon — portraying him.
It’s also fun to see Bradley Whitford again. But that’s about all I can say that’s good.
I’ll try coming back to the subject after I make myself finish watching the thing. Perhaps it gets LOTS better.
Nothing is as it was before. A small change in a single variable in one moment would have changed the entire course of history. What if Garfield’s doctor washed his hands? What if Oswald missed? What if Trump moved his head 3 inches right when the bullet went past? What if there had been a $5 lock on the cockpit door of airplanes during 9/11? Despite all the history leading up to those moments, everything afterward would be different.
As a programmer, I understand the importance of variables. Change one and the results are different. When there are literally billions of variables, thinking that there is some connection to the past is illogical.
Watch out for that butterfly!
Another example: suppose we could abolish the federal income tax tomorrow and start again. Do you believe it would bare any resemblance to the current tax code? If we know all the history of how it has been implemented, why wouldn’t we recreate the same system?
I don’t need to prove you wrong. YOU prove you wrong.
You simply HAVE to do the reading yourself. No one can do it for you. And from what you say about history having no meaning for those who come after, it’s apparent that you haven’t read any.
Comment 2:
“History is time and place and a million variables that don’t translate into today’s world. It’s fine to read about it if you enjoy the stories but it doesn’t affect the world we live in today.”
To this, former US Rep. Denver Riggleman (R), a staff member of the Jan. 6 Committee, replies:
“the past is an incredible indicator of what can happen in the future. And if we’re not looking at … what could happen based on these faulty belief systems or that violence [like Jan. 6, 2021] can’t happen again, you better damn well be looking at it.”