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Tom Holland's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Tom Holland recommends? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Tom Holland's favorite book recommendations of all time. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century book cover1

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Timothy Snyder

4.5
A historian of fascism offers a guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism.

On November 9th, millions of Americans woke up to the impossible: the election of Donald Trump as president. Against all predictions, one of the most-disliked presidential candidates in history had swept the electoral college, elevating a man with open contempt for democratic norms and institu
Pagans and Christians book cover2

Pagans and Christians

Robin Lane Fox

4.0
Fox recreates the period from the 2nd to the 4th century, when the Olympians lost their dominion & Christianity, with Constantine's conversion, triumphed in the Mediterranean world.
List of Maps
Preface
Pagans & Christians
Pagans & their cities
Pagan cults
Seeing the gods
Language of the gods
The spread of Christianity
Living like angels
Visions & prophecy
Persecution & martyrdom
Bishops & authority
Sinners
3

Song of the Dead (Reign of the Fallen, #2)

Sarah Glenn Marsh

4.2
The Dead must stay buried.

Karthia is nothing like it used to be. The kingdom's borders are open for the first time in nearly three hundred years, and raising the dead has been outlawed. Odessa is determined to explore the world beyond Karthia's waters, hoping to heal a heart broken in more ways than she can count. But with Meredy joining the ocean voyage, vanquishing her sorrow will be a difficult
4

The Moon: A History for the Future

Oliver Morton, The Economist

4.0
An intimate portrait of the Earth's closest neighbor--the Moon--that explores the history and future of humankind's relationship with it

Every generation has looked towards the heavens and wondered at the beauty of the Moon. Fifty years ago, a few Americans became the first to do the reverse--and shared with Earth-bound audiences the view of their own planet hanging in the sky instead.
Recently, the
5

The Northumbrians: North-East England and its People -- A New History

Dan Jackson

4.5
The Northumbrians have been overlooked by British and global history, but they've made astonishing contributions to both. Dan Jackson sets out to recover this lost history, exploring the deep roots of Northumbrian culture-hard work and heavy drinking, sociability and sentimentality, militarism and masculinity-through centuries of border warfare and dangerous industry. He explains what we can learn
6

Digging Up Britain: Ten Discoveries, a Million Years of History

Mike Pitts

4.4
Digging Up Britain traces the history of Britain through key discoveries and excavations. With British archaeologist Mike Pitts as a guide, this book covers the most exciting excavations of the past ten years, gathers firsthand stories from the people who dug up the remains, and follows the latest revelations as one twist leads to another.


Britain, a historically crowded place, has been the site of
7

The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia

Neil Price

4.8
Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological or historical research has been done to explore what this may really have meant to t
8

A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith During the First World War

Owen Davies

4.1
It was a commonly expressed view during the First World War that the conflict had seen a major revival of "superstitious" beliefs and practices.

Churches expressed concerns about the wearing of talismans and amulets, the international press paid considerable interest to the pronouncements of astrologers and prophets, and the authorities in several countries periodically clamped down on fortune tell
9

The Greek Experience of India: From Alexander to the Indo-Greeks

Richard Stoneman

4.3
An exploration of how the Greeks reacted to and interacted with India from the third to first centuries BCE

When the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander's army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new and strange world. They knew a few legends and travelers' tales, but their categories of thought were inadequate to encompass what they witnessed. The plants were unrecognizable, their properties
10

The Secret History of Roman Roads in Britain

M.C. Bishop

4.0
11

Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War

Barbara Ehrenreich

4.0
An ALA Notable Book
A New York Times Notable Book

In Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the mystery of the human attraction to violence: What draws our species to war and even makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? Blood Rites takes us on an original journey from the elaborate human sacrifices of the ancient world to the carnage and holocaust of twentieth-century "total war." Siftin
12

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

Edward Gibbon, David P. Womersley

4.2
Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen centuries - its rulers, wars, and society, and the events that led to its disastrous collapse. Here, in book one and two, Gibbon charts the vast exte
The Twelve Caesars book cover13

The Twelve Caesars

Suetonius, Michael Grant, Robert Graves

4.3
As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, Suetonius gained access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eye-witness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the
The Roman Revolution book cover14

The Roman Revolution

Ronald Syme

4.4
The Roman Revolution is a profound and unconventional treatment of a great theme - the fall of the Republic and the decline of freedom in Rome between 60 BC and AD 14, and the rise to power of the greatest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus. The transformation of state and society, the violent transference of power and property, and the establishment of Augustus' rule are presented in an unconvention
The Roman Triumph book cover15

The Roman Triumph

Mary Beard

4.0
Listen to a short interview with Mary BeardHost: Chris Gondek - Producer: Heron & Crane

It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his most glamorous prisoners, as well as the booty he'd captured, from enemy ships and precious statu