Review: A Podcast With Lighthearted Takes on Grim Historical Events

In The Rest Is History, two historians strike a pleasing balance between fact-dense narratives and witty banter.

Today's history podcasts typically come in two varieties: a monotone Ph.D. student reading a Wikipedia page or an enthusiastic amateur cramming every thought he's ever had about World War II into a discursive five hours.

Sitting somewhere in the middle of this spectrum are The Rest Is History hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. The two professional historians strike a pleasing balance between fact-dense narratives and witty banter as they barrel through topics as diverse as 1960s fashion and the battle 
of Stalingrad.

If you're in the market for the 45-minute account of how deadly 16th-century childbirth was or how many bodies the Hundred Years' War produced, this is the podcast for you. The lighthearted presentation of grim material from the past shows how fun history can be when experienced vicariously from a position of modern capitalistic comfort.