Product Description

Michael Young is convinced his brilliant history thesis will win him a doctorate, a pleasant academic post, a venerable academic publisher and his beloved girlfriend Jane. A historian should know better than to imagine that he can predict the future. Leo Zuckerman is an ageing physicist obsessed with the darkest period in human history, utterly driven by his fanatical hatred of one man. A lover's childish revenge and the breaking of a rotten clasp cause the two men to meet in a blizzard of swirling pages. Pages of history. When they come together nothing - past, present or future - will ever be the same again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5050 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Sunday Times
'Stephen Fry at his twinkling best'

About the Author
As well as being the bestselling author of four novels, The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus, and The Liar, and the first volume of his autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, Fry has played Peter in Peter's Friends, Wilde in the film Wilde, Jeeves in the television series Jeeves & Wooster and (a closely guarded show-business secret, this) Laurie in the television series Fry & Laurie.

Customer Reviews

Had to keep reading!
Having enjoyed both Stephen Fry's autobiography, 'Moab is my Washpot', and his first novel, 'The Liar', I expected 'Making History' to run along similar lines. How wrong I was!
I must admit, it took a few pages before I got into the story, but once I did, I couldn't stop reading it! This story is written in Stephen Fry's usual witty, rambling way, yet still manages to be a gripping read. The story's concept is that of an alternative present-day life brought about by the non-existance of Hitler. However, the way in which Fry blends events of a 'changed' history with those taking place in an alternative present, makes for a thought-provoking read. I found that I couldn't wait to find out the changes that had occurred as a result. A refreshingly different, non-boring way of learning modern history - great stuff!

More to be said than a normal good book
I first read Stephen Fry about a year ago, starting with his novel, "The Liar." The humor and interesting plot alone were more than enough to keep me reading his books, but I found the differences between "Making History" and "The Liar" to be amazing. Fry goes from writing just simply for the sake of a good story, to suddenly having a very thoughtful book, providing different views on life and the situation in Europe after the 1920s. The novel challenges your views on what is better, along with what would happen if circumstances in the past had been different.

Really, would life be better if Hitler did not exist? "Making History" says that if Hitler had not risen to power, someone else would have. And if not him, then who? Someone who would use his power better, or worse? The same situation was existing in Europe, whether Adolf Hitler were born or not.

Besides the questions that arise in the readers mind, this book has much more of interest to it. Stephen Fry has an amazing ability to turn absolutely terrible situations into laughable comedy scenes, from being left by a girlfriend, to a battle in World War I. From there he can take his humor and disperse it, such that intensity, suspense, and drama are still effected.

The characters are strange but interesting. The young Englishman, Michael, seems to dislike American styles of living, while at the same time he adopts their words and language. He tries perhaps too hard to be cool, but at the same time he truly is himself. His girlfriend, who is intolerable of just about any nonsense, a character who cannot be lured into making herself ever look stupid or foolish, seems much the type of girl Michael is likely NOT to be with. Perhaps the turn or events in the second half of the novel explains this, or perhaps just simply their age difference could be enough. Any character can be a complete cliché, while at the same time being a separate individual, another intriguing aspect into Fry's writing.

This is easily one of the best alternate history novels to be found anywhere. This is an excellent read, even for people who do not wish to trouble themselves with books that make them think. The story is amazing.

If Stephen Fry were straight, I'd marry him
I absolutely adore this book. Only Stephen Fry could take something quite so clichéd as counterfactual history and make it simultaneously thought-provoking and side-splitting.

Cambridge historian Michael Young has finished his thesis on Hitler's early life; sadly, it's not quite all his supervisor would have hoped, being largely a fictional narrative of what Michael imagines young Adolf's life might have been. Collisions first with his girlfriend's new invention, a male contraceptive pill, and then Leo Zuckerman, the son of an SS officer posing as the Jewish developer of a time machine, lead Michael to hatch an infernal plot to ensure that Hitler never existed.

Well, you knew it wouldn't be as simple as that. The world without Hitler turns out to have been much worse, and Michael discovers that he's gay in a world where his love most definitely does not dare to speak its name. Michael can put the world back like he found it, or he can stand by his man, but not, apparently, both.

No doubt there are some deep thoughts to be had here about the nature of history, causality and human free will, but you wouldn't notice because Fry's only real nod to academia is to satirise it. Instead, he concerns himself with the comedy and the pathos, producing something bizarrely compelling.