Remember how a few months ago it seemed like everyone was talking about the Roman Empire after a TikTok meme? It may be a sign of a wider interest in history at this time.
As Will Dunn wrote in Bloomberg, books, podcasts and newsletters about history are super popular — and, therefore, profitable — right now. Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal spoke to Dunn, business editor of the UK’s New Statesman magazine, about the trend. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kai Ryssdal: Give a sense, just as a ground truth here, how well is history as a genre doing in the business world?
Will Dunn: It’s going extremely well. So you may have noticed that in bookstores around the country, and indeed the world, many books don’t sell that well, but the one shelf you’ll always see in any bookstore is a well-stocked history shelf. This has been true for a long time, but now it is really growing in popularity. So in the UK and Ireland, sales of history books are the highest since records began. And in the US, the entire US book market is pretty much flat, except for a few genres, one of which is history, which is up about 6% in the last year. And on the podcast, it’s really blowing up. The world’s largest history podcast is The Rest Is History, and it’s getting 12.5 million downloads a month.
Ryssdal: Also just for public radio listeners here in the United States, to put that in context, “The Rest Is History” gets more downloads than “This American Life.” Why? Why is this happening?
Dunn: I think there are several reasons. As I said, history has always been popular. I suspect it has something to do with the current moment we are in. In moments of profound political, technological or social change, people often look to the past. So this was true of Victorian Britain, for example. Their society was changing. They had the Industrial Revolution, they had new technologies. And they were obsessed with Egyptology. They were obsessed with the ancient world, and so I think that has a lot to do with it. It also has a lot to do with the podcasts themselves. People really like it, and I think there are a lot of people out there who are doing a really good job of telling those stories.
Ryssdal: We’ll get to podcasts in a second. But I think it’s also interesting to note that, as you point out in this piece, a kind of academic history is in decline, isn’t it? Fewer people study it in school.
Dunn: That’s right, yes. So that’s, the flip side of that is that university admissions to history majors are falling. I think this has to do in part with the long-term trend of the decline of the humanities, because university continues to become more and more expensive. And people rightly, you know, think, “Oh, what’s the job I’m going to get at the end of this?” And not many teenagers think, “Oh, well, I’m going to make my millions as a historian.” By the way, they could be wrong about this, because history is excellent preparation for many different jobs.
Ryssdal: You’re preaching to the choir here, friend. I was a historian long ago. In terms of the podcast, as we were talking about before we turned on the microphones, I’m a recent discoverer and now just obsessed with The Rest Is History, which is, as you point out in this piece, and I’m going to be yourself. -Obvious to anyone listening, two middle-aged white English guys talking about history that you wouldn’t think would fool you. But the point is, yes, it’s about the story, but it’s also about the presocial relationship here, right? It’s about the relationship we as listeners have with these people saying these interesting things.
Dunn: Yeah, I mean, you can probably experience that yourself with your listeners, Kai, I’m sure. You know, it’s a very personal experience to hear somebody’s voice, especially, you know, in headphones, maybe for hours a day. And the company behind The Rest Is History, Goalhanger, they know this and they’re looking for it on purpose. They focus on the relationship between the two hosts. And it really helps, you know, when you feel like it’s the people that you kind of have a sense of a social relationship that really increases your personal sense of investment in the story.
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