Your cart

Close

Total AUD

Checkout

Imprint

  • W&N

Ask A Historian: 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know

Greg Jenner

5 Reviews

Rated 0

History, General & world history, History: earliest times to present day, Trivia & quiz question books, Humour

A roller coaster ride through history revealing the best facts, figures, stories and characters from ancient times to today.

'Brilliantly funny' SHAPARAK KHORSANDI
'Immensely enjoyable' BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE
'Every page contains delights' LINDSEY FITZHARRIS

Why is Italy called Italy? How old is curry? How fast was the medieval Chinese post system? How do we know how people sounded in the past? Who invented maths?

Responding to fifty genuine questions from the public, Greg Jenner takes you on an entertaining tour through history from the Stone Age to the Swinging Sixties, revealing the best and most surprising stories, facts and historical characters from the past. From ancient joke books, African empires and the invention of meringues, to mummies, mirrors and menstrual pads - Ask A Historian is a deliciously amusing and informative smorgasbord of historical curiosities.

Read More Read Less

Praise for Ask A Historian: 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know

  • Jenner uses all the questions you never dared to ask about history as an excellent excuse to rummage around in some funny, fascinating, and downright peculiar corners of the past. Every page contains delights, and you will be illuminated and entertained in equal measure. - Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art

  • If history informs our future, Greg Jenner is one of the best informants out there. He is a natural story-teller, conveying complex ideas and events with pep, verve, and wit. For anyone who regularly asks the question 'Why?', this book is for you. - Susie Dent, author of Word Perfect

  • In this brilliantly funny book, Greg proves yet again that history is for absolutely everybody. - Shaparak Khorsandi

  • A lively selection, spanning a diverse array of subjects and periods... a great way into some of history's biggest themes and concepts. - HISTORY REVEALED, Book of the Month

  • This rewarding romp through the highways and byways of the past... is an immensely enjoyable book, written in a lively, engaging style accessible to a broad audience of all ages... One of Jenner's real achievements is the creation of a genre of public history that fuses scholarly research with humour, and it is intended to entertain as much as it is to educate. For this he is to be congratulated. - BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE

Read More Read Less

Greg Jenner

Greg Jenner is a public historian best known as the host of the hit BBC podcasts You're Dead To Me and Homeschool History, his work on BBC's multi-award winning TV series Horrible Histories, and for his books Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity, From Bronze Age To Silver Screen and A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From The Stone Age To The Phone Age. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway, University of London.

This website uses cookies. Using this website means you are okay with this but you can find out more and learn how to manage your cookie choices here.Close cookie policy overlay