"tortuous history" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe a situation or event with a long and complex past. For example, "Following a tortuous history, the small town finally achieved independence from the larger municipality."
Also, the CHSR has a tortuous history going back decades.
The adaptation of The Alchemist has had a tortuous history.
An Accenture spokesman, Jim McAvoy, blamed the Bloomberg administration for the project's tortuous history.
They preceded him by many years and are part of a tortuous history with many players.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, has called the pledge a "big step" in the long and tortuous history of global efforts on climate protection.
The sense of social cohesiveness fostered by the Sabbath and festival observances has stood the Jews well throughout their long, often tortuous history.
Bruckner's habit of revising his works is a tortuous, fascinating history, in many cases involving relatively small amendments.
Les Amants Du Pont Neuf came out after a tortuous production history, and Carax (never the most attention-seeking of figures) has pretty much laid low ever since.
Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf came out after a long and tortuous production history, and Carax - never the most attention-seeking of figures - has pretty much laid low ever since.
Even as his interview form enacts a proper postmodern skepticism toward the authority of single narratives, he also brings alive a range of voices, and realistically grounds a tortuous family history.
Edmund de Waal's collection of tiny Japanese netsuke, which he wrote about memorably in The Hare With Amber Eyes, arrived via a tortuous family history: the carvings were acquired by an aesthete ancestor in Paris, and later hidden from the Nazis by a servant in Vienna.
