‘May you live in interesting times’. So the Chinese curse goes, and we undeniably live in interesting times, alas. But that doesn’t mean the past has lost any of its allure; indeed, quite the opposite. Right now, it’s just the tonic we need. If you found history dull at school, being merely an endless parade of facts and heavy-handed analysis, then you are the perfect potential reader for these superb examinations of past eras by some of Britain’s best popular historians.
Here are half a dozen of our favourite page-turning history books, guaranteed to have you rapt and astonished at the revelations therein.
Dan Jones – The Plantagenets (William Collins, £10.99)
Perhaps the most popular new historian of our generation is the medieval writer Dan Jones. Young (he’s not even 40 yet) and lavishly tattooed, he’s as well known for his regular appearances on television as he is for his excellent books. He first came to public attention with his bestselling 2012 account of the Plantagenet kings and queens, which mixed in-depth psychological portraits of some of Britain’s best-known rulers with thrillingly depicted battle scenes and edge-of-seat cliff-hangers.
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