The Business of History Is Booming
Books and podcasts about the past are surging in popularity, making them increasingly profitable.
Illustration: Daukantė for Bloomberg
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The snow queen’s castle was in pieces. In the darkness behind the stage at the Theatre Royal, one of the largest and oldest of London’s West End theatres, the set for the long-running hit musical Frozen had been disassembled to make way for two historians. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook stood in the ruins of Elsa’s palace, awaiting their cue.
Suddenly there was a wave of noise. Thousands of fans cheered as the theme to the duo’s podcast, The Rest is History, started playing. Sandbrook shook his head, thinking: “What on Earth?… This is like a weird parallel universe! This doesn’t happen to historians.”