Social media algorithms are strange things. Facebook is constantly showing me ads for products I don’t want, clickbait articles cribbed from Reddit message boards, videos about makeup and fashion, and all matter of political ranting–I generally ignore it all, since I just want to see how my friends are doing, check out vacation and baby and wedding photos, and glance at the headlines. For some reason a couple of years back, Facebook seemed absolutely determined to get me to click on James Fell’s page. I resisted for quite a while, eventually grew curious and read a few posts, and then found myself more than a little amused. I ended up following him, and after reading for some time, decided to buy this book.

In case you are unfamiliar with the author, James Fell is a self-proclaimed sweary historian. For many years a writer on health and fitness, he abruptly decided to change course and put his history degree to use in 2020 (we can thank or blame COVID for this) and began a column titled “On This Day in History Shit Went Down.” To his “immense pleasure and no small amount of surprise” it proved quite popular. The book, based on the column, is just what you’d expect–a short essay, one for each day of the year, about various historical events, each written in his inimitable opinionated, profane, and extremely vulgar style.

From the author’s note, a good way to tell if this book will appeal:

I can’t believe I have to say this, but Nazis are bad. Bad before World War II. Bad during. Still bad now. The worst kind of bad. There are not “very fine people” among them. If you disagree, you won’t like this book. Also, fuck you.

Still here? Cool.

How to read this? You can do a page a day, as it was initially published, starting with whatever date you pick it up, or flip through it to find what looks interesting (Indian princess Noor Inayat Khan, Mae West, Joseph McCarthy, Bloody Sunday, the Berlin Wall, Ernest Shackleton, the Ottoman Siege of Vienna, General Douglas MacArthur, an unsuccessful whale explosion, the Hagia Sophia, Maya Angelou, Tokyo Rose…there are many options). Or just read it straight through–it really won’t take very long. Sweary history goes down easy.

It’s not for everyone–if you find the author's language distracting, offensive, or just plain annoying, or if you have trouble with his political and anti-religious opinions and some rather vitriolic ranting, you will not enjoy this volume. Personally, I thought it was original and quite entertaining. It's also completely horrific in parts, as atrocities of both the distant and recent past are described here in quite vivid detail, only partly counterbalanced by some hopeful and positive stories.  There are no footnotes or sources cited here, so it's essentially useless as a reference guide. But no matter–there are plenty of other books for that.

If this unusual yet oddly appealing volume is your sort of thing, rejoice, because there's a volume two, wherein you can find 365 more days of sweary history to enjoy.

BOOK: On This Day in History Sh!T Went Down

AUTHOR: James Fell

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2021

IMAGE: book cover, Bantam