History That Rattels,
Because It Matters.
History is a thriller, an action movie, and history is, first and foremost, about people.
Not forces, not laws of nature, not some destiny; instead, people make history.
People make history, not the other way around.
I strive to create a world where people search history to find the key to understanding the present, where they value historical knowledge and have fun learning it.
I want to help create a society where historical arguments do not easily manipulate people because they value history and know that the truth is rarely black and white.
History provides answers, but we have to ask the right questions. Join me on my mission. Help me open up the most burning questions and encourage people to seek answers. In history, truth is rarely black and white.
my history books
A brand new beautiful edition. Discover the ancient roots of the people from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, Croatia and the many Slavic nations in Eastern Europe today.
The ancient roots of the Slavs can be traced through language and archeology to the time of late Babylon, and the Vedic culture of India, but more distinct records reveal them as a military force supporting the many tribes, the Avars, the Scythians, Visigoths and Ugrics who harried the edges of the Roman empire in 600s CE. They accompanied many Celtic and the Germanic tribes across the Baltics, down to Constantinople and Greece before retreating to the Black Sea and territories further North, to fill the vaccum left by the collapse of Atilla the Hun’s great empire. Records of their early history were written by monkish historians, after conversion to Christianity swept across the most of lands beyond the old Roman Empire in the 800s and 900s. Their mythology is similar to the Scandinavians of the era, but their lands became more extensive as their influence settled into the broad categories familiar today, with East, West and South Slavs, incorporating the Bulgarians and Hungarians too. This fascinating new book locates the history and influence of the Slavic people during the some of the most important eras in the development of European cultures.
Flame Tree Collector’s Editions present the foundations of speculative fiction: authors, myths, tales and history without which the imaginative literature of the twentieth century would not exist, bringing the best, most influential and most fascinating works into a striking and collectable library. Each book features a new Introduction and a Glossary of Terms or lists of Ancient Leaders.
Before modern science, survival was a long shot.
What if the most gripping stories in European history weren’t wars or kings—but the quiet, relentless struggle of ordinary people trying to stay alive?
History That Rattles tells the story of how Europeans lived, suffered, adapted, and survived from the Middle Ages to the dawn of modern medicine. It follows humanity at its most vulnerable, when climate turned hostile, disease spread without explanation, and the human body became a fragile experiment with no safety net.
When winters grew longer and harvests failed, fear shaped belief.
When illness struck, medicine often hurt as much as it healed.
When answers were missing, people filled the gaps with faith, tradition, and accusation—sometimes with devastating consequences.
This book explores the forces that decided who lived and who didn’t: climate, epidemics, early medical practices, economic pressure, and the ideas people clung to when survival depended on chance as much as knowledge. These stories don’t glorify the past or reduce it to horror—they reveal how people made sense of a world that offered no guarantees.
Written by historian Barbora Jirincová, History That Rattles combines solid research with vivid, human storytelling. It’s for readers who want history that is precise without being dry, and unsettling without being sensational.
After this book, medieval Europe won’t feel distant or abstract anymore—it will feel uncomfortably close.
Buy History That Rattles and cut deep into the history shaped not by victory, but by survival itself.
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I write history that rattles.
Teach history that matters.
Teach history that matters. And research is my second name.
PhD
Ph.D. in history at Charles Univesity in Prague (a leading Central European institution and the oldest university North of the Alps and East of Paris).
succesful freelance history writer
1 book, 2 blogs, 2 magazines, countless articles
researcher
A professional historian specializing in women´s history and the history of early modern ages.
University teacher
A former university teacher loved by my students.
