Starts off well, dissecting various episodes from history to assess their accuracy against what's considered today's facts, but by the end of book a lot of what's discussed seems a bit mean-spirited & a bit pointless. Yes the legend isn't totally based in historical fact but that's the point: the stories are often an allegory to act as a warning or to celebrate down the ages. The main areas covered are the American & French Revolutions, World War 1 & 2, in particular Hitler & the Nazis feature prominently. The most disappointing aspect was the inclusion of a few contemporary "historic", not "historical" items including a couple of items featuring Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq for example. This seems to have been shoe-horned in to give it some additional selling power when it was published in mid-2000s. Reading it now that Blair is long gone it seems particularly tedious & unwelcome (as were the last days of his premiership) and it felt more like current affairs than history. Quite a few of the items overlapped, particularly the many on Hitler & WW2. However for me there were enough items of interest, in periods that I hadn’t read much about before, to keep me going until the end of the book.2/5.
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