History hit: Historian and podcaster Tom Holland's newest title goes to Abacus and Basic Books

The bestselling historian and podcaster Tom Holland will publish a “big idea” title, arguing that the social reforms of the 1960s have a through-line from the Reformation of the 16th century, and that both continue to affect us deeply today.

Richard Beswick at Little, Brown imprint Abacus bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, in The New Reformation: How the 60s Created Our Moral World, from Patrick Walsh at PEW Literary. Walsh sold North American rights to Lara Heimert at Basic Books. Both Abacus and Basic have previously published Holland’s histories. The title is slated for a 2027 launch.  

The New Reformation takes the reader from the original Reformation of Martin Luther to the man at the heart of 1960s social reform, Martin Luther King Jr, to show “how they have combined in unexpected ways to create the moral universe we take for granted today”. 

Holland is one of the UK’s bestselling historians of the classical and medieval period, having sold over £7.5m through Nielsen BookScan UK, led by Rubicon, his 2003 outing on the Roman Republic. His influential 2019 title Dominion was a broad history of the influence of Christianity on the world, assessing its impact on public and private morality over two millennia. Since 2020, he has co-hosted the popular The Rest is History podcast with modern historian Dominic Sandbrook.  

Beswick said: “Tom Holland has now established himself as a public intellectual who combines a deep understanding of history with a mischievous wit and a bravura storytelling ability and what greater proof can there be of his talents than that his translation from the Latin of Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars (Penguin Classics), first published in 121AD, was a top 10 bestseller a fortnight ago.” 

Holland added: “It is six years since my book Dominion was published, and little delights and astonishes me more than the way its sales just keep going and growing. Especially so, since I am now more convinced than ever that the moral and social convulsions we are experiencing in the West are best understood as a process of reformation and counter-reformation, analogous to those launched by Martin Luther. I have been wanting to write about the 1960s as the new 1520s for a long while – and I am thrilled that my two brilliant editors, Richard Beswick and Lara Heimert, have given me the chance.”