I Used to Know That: History

If your response to a mention of the Wars of the Roses, the Sumerians, or the Reformation is, "Hmm, I’ve heard of that—what was that again?," then this is the book for you. This entertaining yet informative book travels back through time to fill in those embarrassing gaps in your knowledge, from the invasions of Britain, the Renaissance, and the Cold War, to the American, French and Russian Revolutions, the World Wars . . . and everything else you have forgotten from your school history lessons. Information is broken down into manageable, bite-sized chunks, refreshing your memory of all those things you once knew but have forgotten, and filling you in on the bits that the school syllabus didn’t include. From building the pyramids in Egypt to the fall of the Berlin Wall, everything you used to know—and much that you didn’t—is here.

Emma Marriott is a freelance writer and editor whose previous works include I Used to Know That: History, Bad History: How We Got the Past Wrong and The History of the World in Bite-sized Chunks.