Published By: Bantam
Pages: 256
Released On: 25/09/2025
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the rich and powerful always look after their own and the working people are always revolting. But every now and again, a new group actually manages to seize power, and it changes history.
Horrible Histories author Terry Deary takes readers on a hilarious and eye-opening journey through some of the most significant rebellions and uprisings that have happened through the ages.
Few enjoy the success of Ivaylo, the Bulgarian swineherd who managed to fight off the Mongols, slay the Tsar and marry his widow in the space of a year. But then, some rebels have more modest aims: Spartacus mainly wanted to go home to see his mum. Either way, we have much to learn from the tactics of revolutionaries gone by, like the two suffragists who posted themselves by Royal Mail to see the prime minister. (A first-class idea, though Downing Street declined the parcel.)
From the peasants to the slaves, the martyrs to the mutineers, Revolting celebrates the resilience and determination of those who dared to challenge the status quo through the ages.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Bantam for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Maybe children would enjoy history lessons a bit more if it was taught like this. It was really quite good fun, and amusing, yet informative and captivating.
Terry has chosen people and events that I hadn’t heard of. Some I had, but a lot were new and fascinating and led me down some Google black holes.
I know Terry is mainly known or his kids books, but I wouldn’t recommend this for children. By all means teach them about these historical events but not in the honest deadpan way that Terry has.
Some of it I found more interesting than other bits, but I find that’s normally the way with non-fiction books.
At just over 250 pages, it should have been quite a quick read, but it felt quite long and I don’t know why. I enjoyed it, thought it witty and well researched and written, and it didn’t feel like a slog, but the page count seemed to creep up slowly.
I mean, it’s not the happiest or jolliest of books, regardless of the humour used. There’s a lot of death and murder and torture and poverty and imprisonments and whatnot.
It wasn’t quite what I thought. I assumed it would be about ‘revolting’ historical people, but it’s about the historical people who ‘revolt’.
Books By Your Bedside 
Reading the review of Revolting (Terry Deary) left me both amused and stirred. The book paints a vivid, often gruesome, but deeply human view of history—where ordinary people, enslaved or suppressed, refused to accept their lot and fought back. It made me think about the cost of courage, how injustice finally breaks when many dare to question “normal,” and how stories of resistance—no matter how old—still shape how we understand freedom, power, and hope today.
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