Context:

The episode opens with a quotation from this novel describing the guillotine. The hosts use it to introduce the topic of the guillotine as a symbol of the French Revolution in the English-speaking world.

Context:

Explicitly recommended as a 'brilliant book' that the host found at the London Library while researching this episode. Described as providing deep history of executions and the guillotine in France. The host notes that much of the episode's content comes from Friedland's book.

Context:

Referenced as a comparison when discussing how Guillotin's proposal for a beheading machine was seen as ludicrous, comparing it to 'the scientist in Gulliver's Travels who are trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers.'