Few non-fiction writers’ books fly off the shelves as fast as Tom Holland’s. He’s a renaissance man — an overused phrase, but merited in his case. He began professional life translating ancient classics for Radio 4 and is best known for his histories of the ancient world: Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium. This back catalogue has created the impression that Holland is a classicist; in fact, he studied English as an undergraduate and was studying for a PhD on Byron before leaving for London in his mid twenties.
The breadth of his learning and its grounding in literature make his books so accessible — and his after dinner speeches so memorable. His latest book is In the Shadow of the Sword, a sequel of sorts to his earlier histories of Persia and Rome. It begins in the 6th century AD in the Near East. The region was, as ever it is, contested. Byzantine Roman power was declining to nothing, while Persia became evermore gangrenous. Holland charts the collapse of these empires and the rise of Arabian Islam in their place. As so often in his books, Holland furthers our understanding of the divine from the geo-political drama. It’s yet another exemplary work of popular history from Holland. And he is only 43; imagine what he might yet master.
The reigning Old Master of non-fiction is Peter Ackroyd, according to Ian McEwan and the late Christopher Hitchens at any rate. Fresh from his recent tour of English history — which, reviewers said, kicked Sir Simon Jenkins’ similar endeavour into touch — Ackroyd has returned to literary biography; this time with a life of Wilkie Collins.
Collins, like his friend Dickens, was fascinated by crime and grime. Ackroyd pursues him through the terrain of Dickensian London, and sketches the enigmatic man who ‘invented’ the detective story and created the enduring grotesque, Count Fosco. This is anything but another pleasant account of Victorian gentility.
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