The Rest Is History
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, you're listening to the On The Media Midweek Podcast. I'm Michael Loewinger. This week, we're sharing a segment from our friends at the New Yorker Radio Hour. Host and New Yorker editor David Remnick sat down with the hosts of the hit podcast, The Rest Is History. I'll let David take things from here.
If I can generalize a little bit for one moment, we Americans are not terribly modest about our place in the world. We think of the United States as not just the mightiest in the military sense or the wealthiest in the economic sense, but in some way the most important, the most central, the city on the hill in the famous historical phrase, the nation that others look up to or should. America rejected monarchy and asserted the right to self-rule during the Revolution. And that was the great shot heard around the world, and everybody supposedly has been playing catch-up ever since. That's the prevailing view in a nutshell, the historical cliché. Now, my guests today have a very different view of the matter.
Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland are the historians who host The Rest is History, a terrific podcast from the UK. And I wanted to see what America's 250th anniversary looks like from a few thousand miles to the east in Great Britain. So we're going to spend our program today... with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook of The Rest Is History. We are always happy to have you on, but we waited for this occasion because I knew you'd have something to say on the occasion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 76. And I think it's fair to say that after having listened to you for hours on this subject... that your take on it, collectively, your take on the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, after a four-part series that I listened to, you had the temerity to suggest that it was not the most important event in the history of civilization.
It's not even the most important event in the history of America. It's not even the most important revolution that happens in the late 18th century, to be honest.
How do British historians view the significance of the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence?
We'll get to that and the French and many more things. But tell me this. Let's start with you, Dominic. Why do you have a rather diminished view, I would say, of the American Revolution and the Declaration?
I don't think I do have a diminished view. I think, well, first of all, an interesting thing that may be surprising to some American listeners. In Britain, the American Revolution is never really taught. It's not discussed. It doesn't really feature in our collective historical imagination. And Americans often say, ah-ha-ha, that's because you lost. That's not really the case, because there's nothing the British like more than a tragic defeat. Actually, it's because it's eclipsed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. And we only have time, we only have space in our heads for one late 18th century thing, and that is the French Revolution and Nelson and Wellington smiting Napoleon. It's not really taught as the American Revolution.
It was always called the American War of Independence. So it didn't really feature in my historical imagination, certainly growing up as a great revolutionary moment. I thought of the French Revolution, of course, or the Russian Revolution. But the American Revolution just seemed to be And this is somebody, you know, I'm not a specialist in 18th century history at all. But it seemed to be a parade of quite boring men talking very earnestly about liberty. Battles that involve 20 people in a field somewhere in the great vastness of North American continent. Yeah. You know, it's not Waterloo. It's not Borodino or something. 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.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:12
2
How do British historians view the significance of the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence?
2:12–11:49
3
Why does the American Revolution have limited presence in British historical teaching?
11:49–37:30
4
Who were the rebels in the colonies and how united were the 13 colonies?
37:30–40:36
5
What political and economic changes after the Seven Years' War helped spark colonial unrest?
40:36–48:34