Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
The Interesting Bits - Justin Pollard

The Interesting Bits

By: Justin Pollard

Paperback | 20 August 2009 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


$38.99

or 4 interest-free payments of $9.75 with

 or 

Ships in 10 to 15 business days

Did you give school history lessons your undivided attention?

Even if you did, youre probably none the wiser as to how exactly Henry II of France came to have a two-foot splinter in his head or why Alexandra of Bavaria believed she had swallowed a piano. Or where terms like bunkum, maverick, John Bull and taking the mickey come from; or how the Tsarina of Russia once saved a life with a comma; or why Robert Pate hit Queen Victoria on the head with a walking stick.

For some unknown reason the most interesting bits of history are kept out of lessons and away from syllabuses. Relegated to historys footnotes, they lie buried beneath the dense text like a few golden nuggets in a mountain of granite.

Now The Interesting Bits rights this wrong; it is a veritable treasure trove of those surprising, eccentric, chaotic, baffling asides that dont fit neatly into historys official narrative.

They are historys little-known treasures the gems that generations of teachers have excised from lessons on the grounds that they might make history too much like well fun.

Industry Reviews
'Newsflash: history can be entertaining and interesting ... an energetic, colourful book' - Easy Living Magazine

Comical and interesting...small but informative...Pollard combines eccentricity with stories of monumental mishaps making for an enjoyable, educating and uproarious read - Catholic Herald, Christian Cudd

More in General & World History

Surveying the Wild Abyss : Unravelling settler memory - Barry Corr
A History of France in 21 Women : History in 21 Women - Katherine Pangonis
The Ridge Must Not Fall : The Secret War Beneath Messines, 1917 - Craig Deayton
A Fortunate Life : The Australian Classic - A B Facey

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Say Nothing : True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Anarchy : The Relentless Rise of the East India Company - William Dalrymple
The Happiest Man on Earth - Eddie Jaku

RRP $32.99

$26.99

18%
OFF
The Children of Ash and Elm : A History of the Vikings - Neil Price
The Dawn of Everything : A New History of Humanity - David Graeber
The Golden Road : How Ancient India Transformed the World - William Dalrymple
Rasputin : And the Downfall of the Romanovs - Antony Beevor

RRP $55.00

$40.75

26%
OFF
Talking Classics : The Shock of the Old - Mary Beard

RRP $36.99

$29.99

19%
OFF
After 1177 B.C. : The Survival of Civilizations - Eric H. Cline