Dominic Sandbrook

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224 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 1 Jul

Dominic Sandbrook’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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On the Media · The Rest Is History · 1 Jul 2026 podcast

So when we came to it, and I think also Tom and I, we've been, you know, we've seen all the sort of Ken Burns style, the flag of liberty over Gobbler's Creek or whatever it might be.

And sort of, you know, a slight smirk perhaps playing on our lips in a true red coat manner as we see the Americans congratulate themselves on

as they go back to their slave inhabited plantations on the great victory of liberty and so on.

So I must admit, I very much enjoyed the great furore about the 1619 project, because as a Brit watching that, it was entertaining to see Americans flagellating themselves and tearing themselves apart about whether they were the good guys after all.

And of course, the 1619 project people said that the British were the heroes in the end.

So that was tremendous news for us.

Just to jump in.

So David, you were talking about the wider context.

So as I would see it, the wider context is this.

The Seven Years' War is the moment that kind of changes everything, what you call the French and Indian War.

So the British have acquired huge – they've conquered huge swathes of North America from the French.

That does a couple of things.

First of all, it removes the threat of the French.

So from this point onwards, the colonists don't need the protection of the British Army as much as they once did.

It also left Britain with a crippling debt to pay.

So the British borrowing ballooned during the course of the war.

And by the end of the Seven Years' War, Britain is paying about half of its national budget on interest payments alone.

So as the British authorities see it, this is the moment when basically they need to sort out that the empire, as it were, has expanded beyond all imagination.

The system for regulating it is very ramshackle and rackety.

And actually, you could argue that the British project of sorting that out is an Enlightenment project.

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