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Given that today there's a concerted effort to effect a similar invention today wrt AI, this book is highly relevant.
Related: Dwarkesh Patel recently interviewed Ada Palmer:

Why Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird – Ada Palmer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIhVfGbREA

Also Tim O'Neill of the History for Atheists weblog/channel:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq1ksVVeRWI

* https://historyforatheists.com/2025/04/interview-dr-ada-palm...

Other interesting interviews: the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth with Bart Ehrman and also Thomas Schmidt (using Josephus' Testimonium), the date of Christmas with Philipp Nothaft, 'pagan origins' of Easter with Andrew Henry (Religion for Breakfast channel), Tom Holland. Good weblog posts too.

Also on the Toldinstone channel:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ws87TCojyc

> although there are traces of an earlier edition published by a more popular press

What’s that referring to?

This is an excellent, delightful book filled with facts, opinions, humor and a level of expertise and diligence that in my opinion redefines how history should be written. This is one of my favorite history books--and I've read dozens.
I consider myself an "intelligent general reader" and read this last month, producing my own much briefer review [0]. Such a good book! I read a lot of popular history, but not usually written by actual practicing historians (who usually probably don't write "popular history"). Good stuff, and highly recommended.

[0] https://www.the-recliner.com/the-sixteenth-book-of-2026-inve...