Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’m excited to be a part of Love Book Tours book tour for
this book.

This book is fascinating. I’ve always been a fan of history, so if you’re a history buff, or just like reading about how historical events occurred, you’ll love this book. The author does a great job of writing in the information in an approachable way so that even when I wasn’t aware of certain events or persons, I understood what the author was talking about.

The book begins way, way back in the Ancient World, including the some of the first known instances of a leader “spinning” stories to say what they want them to say, rather than the truth, and some of the first instances of smack-talking your competitors. We then move into the Middle Ages, including the betrayal of the Knights of Templar, then the Early Modern Age, including the Spanish Inquisition, Henry VIII lies and the many lies of Nostradamus.

We then go into the Nineteenth Century, including Peter the Great and Abraham Lincoln, and then the Twentieth Century, including the Spanish Flu, the Tuskegee Experiment and Chernobyl. I haven’t quite finished this book, but that’s because I’m taking my time and really absorbing the information. The book is fairly, short, however, and a reader could definitely read it in one sitting.

Here’s the official blurb:

On this global journey through human history, you’ll discover that the truth really is stranger – and far more dangerous – than any fiction.

In the newest installment of our A Short History of the World in 50… series, Natasha Tidd examines how lies can change the world around us, from Julius Caesar’s deceptive PR machine to the cover-ups that caused Chernobyl.

Spanning forgeries that created centuries worth of conflict and domination, such as The Donation of Constantine, the Protocols of Zion and the mysterious Testament of Peter the Great, to mass political and press cover-ups including Britain’s Boer War concentration camps, a Pulitzer Prize-winning whitewash of the Ukraine Famine and the infamous Dreyfus Affair in France.

Meet incredible people, including Jeanne de Clisson who became the fourteenth century’s most feared pirate – all because of a lie – and discover how historic fibs and dubious retellings continue to impact our lives today.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Love Book Tours and O’Mara Books. All opinions are my own.