Reel History: the World According to the Movies

From ancient Egypt to the Tudors to the Nazis, the film industry has often defined how we think of the past. But how much of what you see on the screen is true? And does it really matter if filmmakers just make it all up? Picking her way through Hollywood's version of events, acclaimed historian Alex von Tunzelmann sorts the fact from the fiction. Along the way, we meet all our favorite historical characters, on screen and in real life: from Cleopatra to Elizabeth I, from Spartacus to Abraham Lincoln, and from Attila the Hun to Nelson Mandela. Based on the long-running column in the Guardian, Reel History takes a comic look at the history of the world as told through the movies—the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.

Alex von Tunzelmann is a historian and writer. She has published two books: Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire and Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean, and is the author of the long-running "Reel History" column in the Guardian.