Dismantling the traditional historical timeline as we know it, Sam Willis and James Daybell delve into the past to demonstrate how even the most unexpected of subjects has a history, and that those histories link together in unexpected ways.
Who knew, for example, that the history of lightning is in fact all about US independence or that the history of the toilet is about the savagery of high politics during the reign of Henry VIII, or even that the history of the orange is connected to the Gunpowder Plot? And who knew that the history of rubbish is actually all about the history of the truth; that the history of gloves is all about diplomacy; that the history of zebras is all about U-Boats...?
Taking the reader on an enthralling journey through thirty different topics, Histories of the Unexpected not only presents a new way of thinking about the past, but also reveals the everyday world around us as never before.
