Bryan Dobson

speaker

128 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 4 Jul

Bryan Dobson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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Brendan O'Connor · Summer Holiday Book Recommendations “It’s Sinead’s memoir, and she’s reading it – it’s very intimate” · 4 Jul 2026 podcast

No, no.

I just happened to mention to your researcher that I was reading it.

I wasn't proposing a summer reading.

And she said, oh, bring it in and we'll talk about it.

So Tom Holland is a well-known historian.

I think he does the Rest Is History podcast.

Yeah, I was thinking.

And he specializes in that sort of period from, you know, the classical era through to millennium is about the year 1000.

So it's about the hundred years or so or more leading up to the millennium and then the years afterwards.

So this is big.

This is the big sweep of history.

You know, this goes from Charlemagne, you know, the rise of the Islamic state and into Spain and the Vikings and the Normans and the invasion 1066 and all that.

Yeah, the Holy Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire.

He's what would be called a narrative historian.

So he writes with great verve and energy and draws wonderful portraits of the characters.

And you're drawn into the lives of these individuals, you know, as they're struggling to survive or they're succumbing in battle or whatever.

OK, so it brings you there.

Yeah, but what I find fascinating is really it starts to explain why Europe today is the way it is.

I read a lot of history, partly because I enjoy finding out about the past, but it helps me to understand the present.

So this is the kind of birth, if you like, of the very earliest stages of modern Europe.

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