They're not the Tom Holland you're thinking of — but these two British historians are dominating the streaming world.
According to Rolling Stone, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland have become the "Jagger and Richards of the nerd podcasting world" with their show The Rest Is History.
Apple named the podcast its Show of the Year in 2025. It now generates over 20 million streams per month. The franchise includes a Rest Is History club, a Rest Is History tour, two published books, another dropping this fall, and a spinoff podcast called The Rest Is History Book Club.
Sandbrook is known for his work on modern English history and a biography of 1968 antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy. Holland is the classical history expert — author of Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic and Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.
Together, they deliver episodes ranging from Jack the Ripper to the fall of the Aztecs, from the Mona Lisa to Margaret Thatcher's England. Their banter — Sandbrook calling things "woke tosh" while Holland fires back with accusations of "very Protestant faces" — has built a devoted audience.
Launched in late 2020, the show has made discussions of Rome, Trump versus Obama, and 1977's Iranian Revolution must-listen material. Rolling Stone recently interviewed the hosts about their rise to streaming dominance and what comes next.
