I can’t believe I have to say this, but Nazis are bad.
Bad before World War II. Bad during. Still bad now.
The worst kind of bad.
There are no “very fine people” among them.
If you disagree, you won’t like my writing. Also, fuck you.
Still here? Cool. I’m James Fell, the “Sweary Historian.” My bestselling book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down was published by Bantam Books. You can find it in bookstores, or find links to purchase here. More books are coming soon.
I write a lot of free history posts, and I also write stuff that is not free, in case you want to
Fucking Pay Me (please)
Paid subscribers help fund the free stuff. bUt tHaT’s sOciALiSm!
Yeah you know I’m fine with my taxes going to pay for quality public education because I don’t want to grow old in a country filled with stupid people. As a paid subscriber, you’re helping to educate millions of people through a wide variety of world history stories (so we don’t repeat the awful shit quite so much) while spreading my unapologetic liberal biases about how Nazis fucking suck, racism and sexism are bad, vaccines are good, and dogs are the best.
You also get exclusive, subscriber-only stuff.
You get instant access to a lot of already published content dating back to November 2020, including my 1996 master’s thesis about the CIA being murderous dicks by overthrowing democratically elected governments in Latin America.
Behind the subscriber curtain, you’ll also see stuff other than history. You’ll find sometimes vulnerable, sometimes hilarious stories I am often afraid to post publicly. In one of my public history posts about the story of the Virgin Mary I wrote “I guess you can’t create a god by lots of grunting and sweating and spurting of DNA and only one person having an orgasm.” After reading that, you might wonder what kind of shit I am afraid to post publicly. You’ll have to subscribe to find out.
Some of it is deeply personal, like when I was 15 and found a dead body while riding my dirt bike. Sometimes it comes with a content warning, such as sexcapades that led to an ambulance ride. Sometimes I watch a movie that is such a fucktacular shitnado of ass I’m compelled to go on a tirade about the levels of suckage it achieved. And sometimes, it’s writing about writing, and others it’s an advance look on new writing I’m working on, including some experiments with historical fiction.
Your History Guide
I didn’t always write about history. I completed a master’s degree in history in 1996, but rather than going on to a PhD I decided to get an MBA and work for The Man for a while. Later, I got into writing about health and fitness, authoring popular columns for the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune and being featured in many other major publications. I was a body-positive kind of fitness writer, not the fat-shaming-alpha-douche-bro kind. I’ve had books published internationally by Random House, St. Martin’s Press, and Harper Collins, and appeared on radio and TV hundreds of times as a fitness and motivation expert. I’ve also interviewed many celebrities. Hugh Jackman is just as wonderful as you imagine he is, and Lena Headey is hilarious and swears more than I do.
Anyway, that Covid shit hit, and the accompanying sense of mortality had me pondering my life choices. Rather than buy a little red Corvette, I decided to return to my original writing love, and people seemed to like it. In an instant, I transformed from fitness/motivation guy to history guy and I like history way more and holy shit it actually pays better so I’m sticking with it.
