Dan Jones Books
Dan Jones is a British historian, journalist, and television presenter known for his works on medieval and Tudor history. Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he has written several bestselling histories and presented numerous historical documentaries for Channel 5 and Netflix.
Known for: Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages, The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960, The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and the Rise of the Tudors, The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
Books by Dan Jones
Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages
Powers and Thrones is a sweeping narrative history of the Middle Ages, spanning from the fall of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the Renaissance. Dan Jones explores how warlords, kings, popes, and ord...
The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960
The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960 is not a conventional history book. Instead of building its argument through long chapters and abstract analysis, it tells the story of the mod...
The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and the Rise of the Tudors
Few periods in English history are as dramatic, violent, and consequential as the fifteenth century, when rival dynasties fought to control a kingdom weakened by failed war, factional politics, and a ...
The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
Dan Jones’s The Plantagenets is a vivid, fast-moving history of the royal dynasty that ruled England from 1154 to 1399 and helped create the political nation that would become modern England. Rather t...
Key Insights from Dan Jones
Collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Transformation of Europe
When the Western Roman Empire crumbled in the fifth century, it seemed as though the world itself were falling apart. Cities that had stood for centuries fell silent; roads broke down; aqueducts went dry. From the frontiers, wave after wave of migrants — Goths, Vandals, Huns — pressed into the heart...
From Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages
Rise of New Kingdoms and the Fusion of Traditions
Throughout the early Middle Ages, new kingdoms took shape across the former Roman West. The Franks under Clovis, the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Visigoths in Spain, the Anglo‑Saxons in England — each absorbed Roman habits while stamping their own cultural signatures upon them. These were not mere barba...
From Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages
The Dawn of Modern Vision
A new way of seeing can change what a civilization remembers. That is the central insight behind the opening decade of The Color of Time, which begins in the 1850s, when photography was still a young technology but already transforming how people documented the world. This was the age of steam power...
From The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960
War, Division, and Redefinition
Civil war does more than split a nation; it forces a society to decide what kind of future it deserves. In the 1860s section, The Color of Time turns to the American Civil War, one of the earliest major conflicts to be extensively photographed. Here the book demonstrates how images can preserve both...
From The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960
Empires Assert Their Shadows
Empires often present themselves as orderly, civilizing, and permanent; photographs help reveal the strain beneath that performance. In the 1870–1880 decade, The Color of Time widens its frame beyond the Atlantic world to examine imperial power in a global context. This was a period of expanding col...
From The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960
The World Begins to Accelerate
Modernity is not one event but a rising tempo. The late nineteenth century, especially the 1880–1900 period, is presented in The Color of Time as an age of acceleration. Railways expanded, cities swelled, consumer culture widened, communication improved, and societies became more interconnected. The...
From The Color of Time: A New History of the World, 1850–1960
About Dan Jones
Dan Jones is a British historian, journalist, and television presenter known for his works on medieval and Tudor history. Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he has written several bestselling histories and presented numerous historical documentaries for Channel 5 and Netflix.
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Dan Jones is a British historian, journalist, and television presenter known for his works on medieval and Tudor history. Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he has written several bestselling histories and presented numerous historical documentaries for Channel 5 and Netflix.
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