Written by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman and illustrated by John Reynolds, it first appeared serially in Punch magazine, and was published in book form by Methuen & Co. Ltd. in 1930.

Raphael Samuel saw 1066 and All That as a product of the post-First World War debunking of British greatness, very much in the tradition of Eminent Victorians (1918):[1] as he put it, "that much underrated anti-imperialist tract 1066 and All That punctured the more bombastic claims of drum-and-trumpet history".

[3] With its conflation of history and memory, and its deconstruction of "standard" historical narrative lines, the book can also be seen as an early post-modernist text.

Despite the confusion of dates the Roman Conquest is the first of 103 historical events in the book characterised as a Good Thing, "since the Britons were only natives at that time".

1066 and All That inspired Paul Manning's 1984 and All That, dealing with the subsequent history of Britain and the rest of the world up to 1984, and written in the same style, with similar prose, illustrations and tests.

In 2005 Craig Brown released 1966 and All That, which copied the book's style (including elements like the end of chapter tests), recounting the remainder of the 20th century.

Richard Armour's book It All Started With Columbus (1953, revised 1961) treats the history of the United States, from 1492 to the presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in a manner that owes a great deal to Sellar and Yeatman ("Ferdinand and Isabella refused to believe the world was round, even when Columbus showed them an egg").

Matthew Sturgis' book 1992 and All This (Macmillan, 1991) is a "humorous look at Europe in preparation for 1992 when Britain officially becomes part of the Continent.