Tom Holland writes narrative history and historically informed fiction across the ancient and medieval worlds, with a strong interest in religion, empire and cultural transformation.
Tom Holland was born in 1968 and began his career writing fiction before becoming widely known as a historian, translator and broadcaster. His literary background shaped an approach to history that places narrative, character and inherited stories alongside political and military analysis. He has translated classical authors including Herodotus and Suetonius and has presented historical documentaries for radio and television. He also co-hosts The Rest Is History, a podcast that ranges across periods and regions.
Holland’s major histories include Rubicon, on the fall of the Roman Republic; Persian Fire, on the Greco-Persian Wars; Millennium, on the transformation of Europe around the year 1000; In the Shadow of the Sword, on the emergence of Islam; Dynasty, on Rome’s first imperial family; and Dominion, on Christianity’s influence on western thought. His earlier novels often blended historical settings with myth, horror and the supernatural. Holland is particularly useful to readers seeking broad, argument-driven accounts of antiquity, late antiquity and medieval religious change.
Marc Morris