Jonn Elledge

A FASCINATING DELVE INTO THE HISTORY OF THE CITY, BY THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 47 BORDERS 'Charming and outstandingly nerdish' ROBERT WEBB 'I love Jonn Elledge; I love the way he looks at the world' MARINA HYDE _________ For over 10,000 years, we humans have been busy altering our environment and embracing 'progress', evolving seamlessly from hunter gatherers to the modern urban sophisticates we see ourselves as today. But what are the ideas and inventions that enabled humanity to become, by the early 21st century, a majority urban species for the first time? How did the essential infrastructure of modern life - the innovations that we barely even notice, but without which our world would fall apart - actually come to be? With his characteristic wit and boundless curiosity, Jonn Elledge invites us to join him on a fascinating and often surprising tour of the ideas and technologies that made modernity possible. From elevators to electric lighting, parks to pedestrian crossings, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself. A History of the World in 47 Borders was The Sunday Times No 1 Bestseller April 2025

For over 10,000 years, the human race has been busy altering our environment and embracing 'progress', evolving seamlessly from hunter gatherers to the modern urban sophisticates we see ourselves as today. But what are the ideas and inventions that enabled humanity to become, by the early 21st century, a majority urban species for the first time? How did the essential infrastructure of modern life - the innovations that we barely even notice, but without which our world would fall apart - happen? With his characteristic wit and boundless curiosity, Jonn Elledge invites us to join him on a fascinating and often surprising tour of the ideas and technologies that made modernity possible. From elevators to electric lighting, street numbering to sewers, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself.

Brought to you from the inquisitive mind of Jonn Elledge, the number-one bestselling author of A History of the World in 47 Borders, The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything is a treasure trove of random knowledge. Covering everything from the furthest known galaxies to the murky origins of oyster ice cream, inside you will find a discussion of how one might determine the most average-sized country in the world; details of humanity's most ridiculous wars; and, at last, the answer to who would win in a fight between Harry Potter and Spider-Man.Bizarre, brilliant and filled with the unexpected, The Compendium covers the breadth and depth of human experience, weaving its way through words and numbers, science and the arts, the spiritual and the secular. It's a feast of facts for a hungry mind.Includes entries on the cosmos, the human planet (and the lines we draw on it), questions of measurement, history and politics, the natural world, leisure and many 'oddities' that don't fit elsewhere...

'Fascinating' TOM HOLLAND | 'A delight from start to finish' MIRANDA SAWYER'A novel and fascinating perspective on world history' BILL BRYSON'By turns surprising, funny, bleak, ridiculous, or all four of those at once' GIDEON DEFOE'Elledge writes with wry humour and infectious enthusiasm' OBSERVERPeople have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different way. By telling the stories of these borders, we can learn a lot about how political identities are shaped, why the world looks the way it does - and about the scale of human folly.From the Roman attempts to define the boundaries of civilisation, to the secret British-French agreement to carve up the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, to the reason why landlocked Bolivia still maintains a navy, this is a fascinating, witty and surprising look at the history of the world told through its borders.More endorsements for 47 BORDERS: 'Fascinating and hugely entertaining' MARINA HYDE 'You'll never look at a map the same way again' STEPHEN BUSH '[A] clever, confounding history' PATRICK MAGUIRE'A witty grand tour' DORIAN LYNSKEY 'Warm, funny and sharply political' PHIL TINLINEIn the press:'[A] sprightly telling' New Statesman'Open and inviting' History Today'Wonderfully nerdy - and at times shocking' Byline Times'A diverting and informative read' theartsdesk.com

'Uproarious . . . [Phillips and Elledge] pair the abundant good humour of this book with a warning about the corrosive effects of conspiracy theories' The TimesFrom the Satanic Panic to the anti-vaxx movement, the moon landing to Pizzagate, it's always been human nature to believe we're being lied to by the powers that be (and sometimes, to be fair, we absolutely are).But while it can be fun to indulge in a bit of Deep State banter on the group chat, recent times have shown us that some of these theories have taken on a life of their own - and in our dogged quest for the truth, it appears we might actually be doing it some damage.In Conspiracy, Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge take us on a fascinating, insightful and often hilarious journey through conspiracy theories old and new, to try and answer a vital question for our times: how can we learn to log off the QAnon message boards, and start trusting hard evidence again?Praise for the Brief History series:'Witty, entertaining and slightly distressing... You should probably read it' Sarah Knight, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck'Brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant' Jeremy Clarkson'Very funny' Mark Watson'Both readable and entertaining' Telegraph

'Uproarious . . . [Phillips and Elledge] pair the abundant good humour of this book with a warning about the corrosive effects of conspiracy theories' The Times From the Satanic Panic to the anti-vaxx movement, the moon landing to Pizzagate, it's always been human nature to believe we're being lied to by the powers that be (and sometimes, to be fair, we absolutely are).But while it can be fun to indulge in a bit of Deep State banter on the group chat, recent times have shown us that some of these theories have taken on a life of their own - and in our dogged quest for the truth, it appears we might actually be doing it some damage.In Conspiracy, Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge take us on a fascinating, insightful and often hilarious journey through conspiracy theories old and new, to try and answer a vital question for our times: how can we learn to log off the QAnon message boards, and start trusting hard evidence again?Praise for the Brief History series:'Witty, entertaining and slightly distressing... You should probably read it' Sarah Knight, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck'Brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant' Jeremy Clarkson'Very funny' Mark Watson'Both readable and entertaining' Telegraph

The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything is a treasure trove of random knowledge. Covering everything from the furthest known galaxies to the murky origins of oyster ice cream, inside you will find a discussion of how one might determine the most average-sized country in the world; details of humanity's most ridiculous wars; and, at last, the answer to who would win in a fight between Harry Potter and Spider-Man.Bizarre, brilliant and filled with the unexpected, The Compendium covers the breadth and depth of human experience, weaving its way through words and numbers, science and the arts, the spiritual and the secular. It's a feast of facts for a hungry mind.Includes entries on the cosmos, the human planet, questions of measurement, history/politics, the natural world, leisure and many 'oddities' that don't fit elsewhere...