The Resilience of the British Monarchy

Hey, you're listening to the on the Media Midwek podcast. I'm Michael Loinger. 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 aroundound the world. and everybody supposedly has been playing catch up ever since That's the prevailing view in a nutshell The historical cliche Now my guests today have a very different view of the matter. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland or the historians who host the rest is history Terrific podcast from the UK And I wanted to see what America's two hundred fiftieth anniversary looks like From a few thousand miles to the east in Great Britain. So we're going to spend our program today. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. The rest is history We are alwaysways 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 seventy six And I think it's fair to say that after having listened to you for hours on this subject, that your take on it ive 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 eighteenth century, to be honest. We'll get to that the French and many more things. But tell me this. let's start with you, Darinic Um Why do you have a rather diminished view, I would say? the American Revolution. and the dececlaration. 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, Ahaa, that's because you lost That's not really the case because there's nothing that the British like more than a kind of 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 eighteenth century thing, and that is the French Revolution and Nelson and Wellington smiting Napoleon. U It's not really tos 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 I'm not a specialist in eighteenth century history at all but it seemed to be parade of quite boring men talking very earnestly about Lberty Battles that involve twenty people in a field somewhere in the great vastness of North American continent U, you know, it's not Waterloo. it's not Boradino or something. So 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 Kenburn style, the flag of Liberty over Gbbler' Creek or whatever it might be. and sort of, you know, a slight smirk perhaps playing on our lips in a true redcoat manner As we see the Americans congratulate themselves as they go back to their slave inhabited plantations on the greatreat Victory of Liberty and so on. So I must admit I've very much enjoyed the Great Fiory about the sixteen nineteen 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 sixteen nineteen project people said that the British were the heroes in the end. So that was tremendous news for us. Well, the sixteen nineteen project is definitely something I do want to talk about, but before we get there us understand what was going on between the colonies and the British in the run up to the Revolution or at least what we call the Revolution I mean, just to broaden it out on on why maybe it doesn't have the saliency in the British imagination that the French Revolution does And it relates to your question I think T For people in Britain The American War of Independence, American Revolion whatever you want to call it, is part of a broader continuum, which is the English speaking Atlantic world and There is a case for saying that the War of Independence is a British civil war. It's another civil war in the line that descends from the civil wars that Britain and Ireland backack in the seventeenth century and a lot of the tensions and conflicts gave rise to the war in the seventeenth century were exported the newew world. So whether it's the Puritans in Massachusetts or the Quakers in in Philadelphia or the Catholics in Maryland those religious tensions to us are very familiar. and they seem certainly to me Very, very R releligious And just as in the eighteenth century in Britain those religious tensions kind of blur and fade into what you might call kind of enlightenment dynamics, the same thing seems to be happening in America And that's why There are lots of people in Britain who are king the American rebels, just as obviously there are lots of people who are opposing them and I think that the conflict makes best sense when seen in the Atlantic context, rather than being seen as something that is merely bred of American concerns because those concerns exist in the broader kind of Anglosphere dimension, I think. But Tom, what was the nature of the rebels? Some of our listeners will be surprised to hear that in fact, in New York in particular, This was a stronghold of pro British sentiment. Yeah But there were rebels in the colonies. What was the nature of the early sense of rebellion, orr was it just a kind of tax dispute as something It faries. It faries from from colony to colony difference in character between, say Massachusetts and New York and Pennsylvia and Virginia is very, very salient, and it is something that threatens to derail the whole project of, say, issuing a declaration of indndependence and the great achievement of The rebels in the war is not just to defeat the British, but to forge a genuine sense that these are United States Just to jump in. say David you were talking about the wider context. So as I would see it, the wider context is this U 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 hu 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 colonistiess don't need the protection of the British arrmy as much as they once did It also left Britain with a crippling debt to pay. So the British Budget. Yeah know, British borrowing, balloons 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 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 projects are sorting that out as an enlightenment project that it's a modernizing project. The Parliament sits there and it says, okay, we've basically got these seventeenth century colonies. It's all a bit of a mess. We're going to sort it out. It's mad that they're not paying the same taxes that people pay in Britain the stamp taxs and documents and so on We should extend, you know the British gentry have paid for the cost of this war They are very heavily taxed by historic standards We will make the Americans pay the colonists we will ask the colonists to pay a little bit towards their own defense. And I think that's perfectly reasonable. and no one could really disagree with that And so there's that element to it. As Tom, I think absolutely rightly says, there is an element of it being a successor to the religious conflicts of the seventeenth century, so conflicts about You, the Church, Parliament, King and so on, that we say St Charles I first not of Cromwell There's also, of course, the element that The British basically don't really want the colonists to keep expanding westwards Since seventeen sixty three, they said, hold on, you this far and no further, because they don't want to provoke expensive conflict with the kind of native tribes And a lot of the colnues, George Washington is a brilliant example of this They've got a lot of investment in land speculation and stuff, and they want to keep expanding westwards and they're annoyed Dominic, what what you're suggesting is that the great imperialists in this picture are not the Brits George Washington. Well, I think that would be pushing it too far because Britain at this time is also seizing much of India So there is no question that the British are imperially minded. Right. But the Americans are not anti imperial freedom fighters. I mean, they want to take the whole continent for themselves. I mean, George Washington is the classic example of this He is hard up. He's looking to make land deals further west as he sees it The British are saying no to this So I mean, Washington, in the American context is much more of an expansionist colonialist figure. than George III, for instance. Dominick, in your series, you quoted the New York's very own Adam Gopniick. who asked the question if the American Revolution was in fact A mistake. Yeah and you get into that. I'd love to hear you on that subject So here is the question that I think puzzle me if I were American. and it puzzles me that Americans don't discuss this. It is this Canada exists, right And Canada is not a terrible place by any means. Also Australia exists. O New Zealand. So when Americans look to Canada, I'm curious about what they think about this country you know, is still subject to the crown remained, as it were, loyal in the vertic commce to Britain Well, we know what Donald Trump thinks. Yes. We do know what Donald Trump thinks. But Americans more broadly, I'm curious whether they think that kindind of the how that fits into the you know, the language of liiberty, the discourse that this was a tremendous triumph for freedom against oppression. Because if that is the case, right thenen presumably Canada is not truly free And people in Canada are leading the lives of Hellots subjects to the to the yoke of the British crown. The yoke of the British crown. And obviously no sane person thinks that, right? So there is an alternative reality So my question would be Is it possible U events in the late eighteenth century could have played out differently. And the United States might not have ever existed. And British North America might now be united under the overlordship of Mark Karney. And I can absolutely imagine a world in which Um America Britain. common political language. remains something that unites rather than separates One of the ways that This goes off peed in what becomes the war is the fact that The rebel colonists are weaponizing a very specific English language and English vocabulary. of Liberty So when the the rebels in say Massachusetts are opposing the colonial government. They're doing it in the context of what they call English liberties They're looking to England as the source for the ideology that they are then using to turn against British rule John Lark. And that is John Lck. Well, yees, so and obviously it expresses itself in various ways with the kind of the key figures in the in the American Revolution So if you look at Thomas Jefferson he becomes I think pretty annglhobic. I would say that he is Very host. I mean as as hostile And then as dangerous an enemy as the British Empire has ever faced. Thomas Jefferson? Yes. and yet he is passionately devoted to ideals of liberty that he traces back ultimately to the Saxons when they lived in Germany in the Roman period before they kind of crossed to Britain And he wanted to have on the United States Seal, he wanted to have Hengiston Haorser, the primordial ancestors of the Angles and the Saxons when they settle in Britain. And he sees these kind of ancient ideals of liberty as being portrayed by the Hanoverian regime as he would frame it, in the eighteenth century And that's kind of one way in which that mutates. But another figure who I think kind of represents a possible way in which Britain and America could have stayed together is Benjamin Franklin who is at least as British a figure as he is American. And who right up to the Boston Ta party is kind of saying this is a terrible mistake Can we not have a form of accommodation I'm speaking with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, hosts of the podcast, The restest is History We'll continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radioour. I'm David Remnick. I'm speaking today with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, who together host The restest is history, onene of my favorite podcasts and one of the most popular things in the world, at least in English Sandbrooke was on the history faculty at Oxford University And he's written a number of books on modern British and American history. Holland wrote about the classical world. And he's translated works from the Latin and ancient Greek But on the rest is history, they cover just about anything A Roman emperor one week, The Rolling stones the next. a series on Hitler And then the samurai period in Japan. That's the way it goes on their podcast. But the relevant thing for our conversation today, our subject is a four part series that they produced on the American Revolution So I'll continue my conversation now. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbro. Well let's take on a very big subject in this and And that's the element of slavery There were many slave holders considered themselves or would be considered in the rearview mirror as revolutionary Um How to grapple with this? How do you grapple with that? Well, I think I mean one of the differences between, say the Irish War of Independence and the American War of Independence is that in the Irish War of Independence they are the rebels are looking to draw on ideas and myths and slogans that come from specifically Irish history rather than British history Whereas in the American War of Independence, all the slogans are coming from British language, British vocabulary. Ironically. Ironically and In that mythology, in that vocabulary, the words are like liberty and freedom. are fundamental And you know it is English liberties that are being defended against the Redcoats in Massachusetts when the war kind of goes hot. And this The British also have massive slave holdings in the Caribbean and it is growing problem, I think for the slave holders that this is rubbing up against all kinds of ideological concerns and anxieties within the metropolies, within Britain and the notion that there is there can be no slavery in Britain, that a slave who steps foot on British oil as a result of that becomes free is starting to bed down And you have those historically salient ideals of political liberty blurring with religious concerns about it, which are deriving from Quakers from Evangelicals So you have a political and you have a religious project that is starting to look at the institution of slavery and to question it very, very radically. And this is happening in exactly the decades where the revolution is blowing in the United States And I think that That sets up a kind of massive massive accusation of hypocrisy that enemies of the revolution H name the revolutionaries and American British critics, of whom again, Samuel Johnson is the most famous And he has, what is it? that how is it that it is the drivers of Negro, from whom we hear the loudest yelks for liberty Right. And there was a piece in the New Yorker not long ago by the historian Jill Lapur in which he was describing the drating the group editing process of the Declaration of Independence. And if you've ever written a piece or a book, you know that editing by group is always ends in sadness And Jefferson himself was struggling in various drafts with the inclusion or not. of the slavery question He wanted it gone, didn't he? Yeah. I mean, he wanted slavery gone abbssolutely was passionately committed to it And he was furious when those passages then got written out. You know, when he dies, he does not even do what Washington did and try and free most of his slaves. Yeah, it's a complicated picture. So Washington' a good example Um You know, Washington has slaves U Washington at Valley Forge when he's holed up there with his army. It's at that point when Rhode Island struggling to fulfill its recruitment quota becomes the first state or colony by the freedom Oh African Americans in order to recruit them and to meet its total and to send them to the Continental Army And Washington, even though he's a slave owner, even though that s against the kind of the philosophy of slavery. He accepts it And it's interesting that it's in seventeen seventy eight It's after, you know men have joined the Continental Army in large numbers that he writes to his steward back at Mount Vernon. he says, we should stop selling slaves against their consent. And There's a note in a letter to his Steward where he mentions the enslaved people at Mount Verne in passing and he says I wish we could kind of get clear of this whole business One point we should clarify is that in something that you make clear is thirteen colonies that rebelled were not actually the British Empire's prize possession. No No, no,s so that amazes people when we say that. just for clarity, what was the prize possession? The Caribbean, the Caribbean because that's where the wealth was coming from. I mean, sugar So that's why the French entry into the war is such a game changing moment. because when the French join the war in a big way, when French ships appear and there the first four thousand Frenchmen come ashore. That is a game changer precisely because for the British, the priorities have completely changed. So from this point onwards, for the British, it's like, right, let's protect. We need to protect those colonies in the Caribbean because the health of our economy, the strength of the country depends on the sugar Islands of the Caribbean. We can lose Rhode Island or Delaware. I mean, who cares about that that keeping Jamaica is all important. And so that from London That is the perspective. So funnily enough, when you go to seventeen eighty three, the Treaty of Paris British. Sure, they're annoyed that they've lost the thirteen colonies of the, you know, the North American seaboard But they think to themselves, you know what? it could have been a lot worse? We could have lost India, we could have lost the Caribbean. We'll take it. Let me ask you this There was a big You know, history war hub upub in the United States not so long ago when the New York Times published its sixteen nineteen project, which began in I think it was twenty nineteen And it focused on slavery as as integral to American history in the period that we're discussing What is your sense, Tom, of what the sixteen nineteen project got right, what was important about it, and maybe where it fell short? I mean, I think that it is right project of establishing a viable colonial project in North America and in the Caribbean for the British was dependent on forced labour There was no way in which it could really be viable without that. And the British came up with, you know, It's initially the English, but then inue course the British they are always looking around for sources of labour To begin with it's usually transported people Britain. So lots in the civil wars of the mid seventeenth century, Scots are transported there, Irish are transported there Because there has been a massive infrastructure of exporting slaves from Africa to the Spanish New worldor largely being done by the Portuguese That exists, that is a framework of exploitation that is ready to be used. And the English have begun trying to muscle in on this very early on. So some of the earliest voyages that Francis Drake, the great kind of maritime hero of the reign of Elizabeth I, that he does is he goes on a slaving expedition I think that by the early eighteenth century The fact that Not just America, North America, but the Caribbean as well is dependent on slavery is becoming a vast moral and economic crisis So peopleople across that British Atlantic Wor. and the kind of the opposition to it bred by kind of scale of horror that the growing industrialization of the British Empire in the eighteenth century is generating. I think one of the things people now might get wrong is the idea that the British Empire is dependent on slavery. I think it's the other way r I think it is the fact that Britain is industrializing that makes the exploitation of slavery brutal and unspeakable to a degree that had not previously been witnessed. It is hideous. So I there's a passage in the Marquis Dsade, I think it's Juliette where he is writing with immense approval. of all the horrors and tortures and violence that ancient empires had inflicted. And he says that none of our modern states can compare with the Persians or the Romans for their cruelties. The only exception I will make are the English colonists in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Seaaboard of North America. Amazing. They know the horrors and he lists the horrors in kind of great detail. it You can see So there's a kind of representative figure who is a Quaker from Essex in England called Benjamin Ligh who goes to the Caribbean and witnesses the horrors there and is so appalled that he has a kind of religious conversion. And he then goes to America to Philadelphia because he's hoping that you know this is the great city of the Quakers because it's city of Brotherly love. sureurely there'll be no slaves there. And he discovers slavery and is appalled by it. And he becomes the first kind of activist really. He does all these stunts where you know he goes to the Quaker meeetinghouse and he pulls out a Bible and he's put purple juice in it and he stabs it with a sword and all this purple juice comes out looking like blood. And he retires to a cave. and leads this incredibly effective campaign against slavery, which ends up shaming the Quakers into effectively becoming abolitionists. And this in turn is an influence on Benjamin Franklin. And I think it's one of the most admirable things about Franklin and about the American Revolution is that Lots of the founding fathers are prepared to wrestle with these issues. It's not like we have just discovered them ourselves. They do wrestle with them and they come to different solutions, perhaps. But Franklin is an example of someone who By the end of his life, the final months of his life, he is devoted to opposing slavery This man who had thought to run an advert in the British press requesting the return of a slave, and presents a petition to Congress saying, please get rid of this. It's terrible. Um And in his final piece of published writing, he pretends to be M a Muslim advisor in the Barbary States And he says It would be ridiculous for us to free these Christian slaves. theseese Christian slaves would be helpless without their servitude. You know, they wouldn't possibly survive. and he's parodying the language that he himself had earlier used to justify slavery. So I think that degree of self flagellation about the founding of America, the sense that slavery is the original sin that slavery had accompanied the making of America. I think that is true. I don't think without that, it would have been possible to generate the colonies and give it the prosperity that it did the same time The horrors that are consequent on this do generate the process of abolitionism. today has come to be taken for granted across the world. I think it is important try and think yourselves back into the shoes of people for whom the notion that slavery was an institutional wrong would have been unthinkable. It's own it's bred out of this world, this notion and it's come to seem so obvious to most of us today. I mean, to almost all of us that we cannot imagine not thinking it And yet it's It was more than possible. People completely took it for granted Tom Holland, the co host of the Rest is History Dominic Sandbroo When we come back, we'll discuss the fate of the British monarchy and the American president that these guys call Hossally consequential This is the New Yorker Radio hour. Stick around This is New York Radioour. I'm Did Remennick, and as we get ready for the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence Speaking with Tom Holland and Dominiic Sandbrook British historians who co host the podcast Rest is history Continue our conversation now. Let me ask you about the way you're you in Britain or you too as British historians and podcasters and thinkers are Looking at the United States now and And we're celebrating this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Recently on one of your broadcasts, you called Donald Trump Colossally Consequential. Yeah. Colossally consequential. a someone who defines age as opposed to many other prescedidents of contemporary times, right. Explain what you mean So Um If you look back at recent presidents, let's say Barack Obama, good example Maybe Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr. and so on You have a number of presidents who perhaps over time, Barack Obama different, of course, because he's the first African American president But in the long run Will they leap out of the history books in a way that Benjamin Harrison or Graver Cleveland or Calvin Cooleridge do not And I don't think they will. I think in the you know in the twenty second century, I don't think people will be terribly excited. I mean, they might be excited about the more colorful aspects of Bill Clinton's Custal life. But I think as a president, as a political operator, they won't be terribly interested. Donald Trump seems to me much more interesting for various reasons. First of all, it's such an American life. I mean, imagine being the person who writes the definitive biography of Donald Trp in ten or twenty or thirty years time, what an extraordinary Robert Carow esque book that will be So because it takes in all sort so many different things I think is so fascinating because there are aspects of the American character in American history that have reached fulfillment in Trump. In other words, I don't necessarily I don't think Trump is exceptional all the the newspaper coverage after the business and the storm of the capitol and stuff, know, this is not America. This is very unamerican. I think that was wrong. I think Trump is profoundly American Trump is not all there is of America, but I think there are nativist, there are ultra patriotic, nationalistic, whatever, whatever impulses that reach fruition in Trump. But I also think Trump has changed history Trump's tariffs. Trump's attitude to China. Trump's war in Iran. T Trump's attitude toward the war in Ukraine You know, into NATO? Yeah, into NATO By the end of tenure as president, he would have changed the course of human events, of world affairs in a way that Barack Obama never did. Well, let me ask you this as an observer sitting where you are, and I don't necessarily disagree with you How much of this is an expression of him and the constituents he represents and the fact that he prevailed in a couple of elections? And how much would you think that will be Post Trump How much of This will persist after Trump is gone, presumably in twenty twenty eight. Why would it go away Why would it just vanish overnight I'm not saying the phenomenon itself will disappear. I'm not saying that nativism will disappear or the corruption or any of these other aspects you've rightly pointed to. I I think that certain aspects will not go away because Trump has been successful because he understood, I would guess, kind of instinctively, he has a kind of feral intelligence. I mean, he's not an intellectual. he senses it in the way that a stoat might kind of sense a wounded bird and goes for it hisis mastery of social media ability to control narratives which is obviously kind of evident in You know, the kind of the pre history before the internet, you know, his fascination with wrestling which is, you know kind of scripted but pretending not to be scripted. His fascination with reality TV and TV generally. I mean, he kind of it was in his bones. He was the person who was perfectly equipped by his upbringing, by his instincts go for the Jugulular with the opportunity that social media presented and What he has done with that is a lesson that will be people will be kind of drawing on decades and decades to come because it's obviously not going to go away I also think that character is unbelievable rudeness, his the violent quality of his statements, the The everyday language that he uses to frame that. U That also has established a template for how to succeed in American politics that again is simply not going to go away. But I also just think he is better at it than Farage or Ban or L Pen, or anyone else that you would want to compare it to Trumpism is not new. And actually even within the international context. S I think it looks somebody like Silvia Berlusconi In Italy in the nineteen nineties is again a kind of precursor Trump So what does it mean for the United States? I think The Trumpest style of politics, as Tom I think says, is not going to go away. That's partly because of the changes in the media ecosystem, they reward kind of trumpest politics. I think they're also kind of there are other structural causes. There are a lot of people who feel disenfranchised by de industrialization. There are a lot of people who feel alienated from the culture of the big cities, for example people who feel left behind or whatever people who feel angry about immigration, for example, again, those things are not going to change So where does it leave the United States? I mean, arguably, you might say it leaves the United States where it's always been for two reasons. Number one I think Populist politics has always been a distinguishing feature of American political life Far more so than in Europe. I mean, there is populist politics in Europe, of course. The sort of populist rhetoric of the the common man against the corrupt elite That is hardwired into American, you know political culture. I mean, Richard Hofstadter pointed that out more than half a century ago So I think that's one aspect. The other aspect that I think is so interesting Um A historianical Fhilipe Fernandez Arnesto wrote a few years ago a book in which he said, mayaybe it would be interesting to look at the United States. Inead of looking at always in isolation from the other successor states to the American colonial empires, why don't we look at it as one of them Is it so different from Mexico from Argentina, is this political culture so completely different? Of course for distinctive elements because it comes from because of the influence of English political culture You know, the fondness for a strong man, the foongist for an authoritarian populist, the kind of caldillo politics. I wonder whher you could easily see the United States moving in a direction where that becomes more and more pronounced I get the anxiety, but Trump is Trump And his popularity ratings were now in the thirties And there's an election coming and he's about to suffer one believes and maybe hopes a defeat in the midterms and an expiration date in twenty twenty eight. So the argument is, well, maybe this is if not a one off, it certainly represents tendencies in American politics, just as racism and anti Semitism represent persistent tendencies not only in the United States, but elsewhere Those are not going to go away But it's possible that through electoral politics they become submerged. I think one of the ways in which you can measure the consequential character of an actor in world history as if they have an ism named after them and people talk about it seriously. Right. So there haven't been that many. I mean, there's Caesarism Napoleonism and it's interesting that all of them kind of involve A strong man emerging from a Republican system. But there's also something called liberalism. and do you think absolutely is. Do you think that's been eradicated from American political culture? No I don't. So I am relatively sanguine about the prospects for American liberty because I think it's had a very long innings and has done incredibly well for itself. And I think that there is Within the character and the myths of the American Republic, there is an inherent anxiety that the Republic will turn to autocracy and that's because it was founded as a similarrum of the early Roman Republic. And the lesson of Roman history is that A some point a republic will become an autocracy. And so people have been dreading the emergence of a Caesar since Constitutional Convention And when Frlin Benjamin Franklin came out and people said, what is it to be? he said a republic if you can keep it Nesscy Pelosi always reminded us. Yeah. So right from the very very beginning, this has been an anxiety andet people were anxious about it in the you know with relation to Jackson O to Lincoln orr to Rosefelt But hang on, is it not anxiety in Britain as well? You have a current of populism that's running very strong now. You have a very relatively wealthy London And it's said that the rest of the economy in Britain more resembles Alabama than New York. Um these resentments These changes in the media Ag, it's not on the same scale as the United States and sheer population and military power, but do not have the same anxieties about call it Trumpism the co, if you will, or forarjism or what? I would say no. I don't agree with some about this at all. I think because the political culture I think political culture in Britain is completely different That's not say that populism isn't a feature, of course But political culture in Britain is quite different from the United States, I think, for two reasons. It's much less moralistic So threats are not usually cast as a danger to the integrity of the Republic you know, you have changes of governments and there's a little bit of overheated rhetoric that the newspapers get excited, but by and large we rub along pretty well big thing I think in Britain and the difference that the United States has actually with Europe in general. is the United States has only two parties There are us, There's the good people, and there are the other people who are evil And now in Britain, by definition, we've always had a even at the point of where the two parties of labor at their strongest, there were still other parties. There were still a few liberal MPs. And of course, now in Britain we have effectively a multi partarty system. So it's very hard to cast your opponents as terrifying danger to the threaten and survival of the nation state itself when there are so many shades of gray as it were, and there are so many shades of nuance. So in that sense, I think Britain is much closer to European democracies than it is to the United States Gentlemen, I can't be sitting here with two British historians and not ask about the state of Well, the monarchy it is it just about done or are you just having a low period in the history of the monarchy in many ways and it will revive itself. whyy do you assume's low period? I'm interested I'm intgued why you think I think the monarchy is doing fine. Yeah. You do. I didn't ask about constitutional monarchy. a systemic, but the royal family seems in a state of stress. I think I mean, I think because because To the degree that I disagree with Dominic. I think that Britain and America do still remain shaped by that common legacy from the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries B both our histories are marked by tension between what, of course, you know, in the civil Wars were Uh Parliamentarians who ended up chopping the head of the king and then also decided that actually we'll have the monarchy back And so the sense that you can have degree of monarchy and have a very thriving democratic system as it emerges, I think is something that is shared by B America and Britain in its own ways the America, I think, demonstrates that it's perfectly possible to have a monarchy and a Republican system And in a way Britain does as well. And it's often said that America is a monarchy pretending to be a republic and Britain is a republic pretending to be a monarchy. And I think that there is an element of truth about that And I think that the legacy the centuries that have preceded this current moment I think should give us an element of reassurance and perhaps also should make us ponder, are we not being very arrogant in assuming that we uniquely live at the end point, the end of days? There's a kind of fulfillment and feeling that we are Witnessing the end of a great and ancient story. I don't think we are And Maybe I'm being polyanarish about it But I think that, you know, it Adam Smith said there is a lot of ruin in a nation And I don't think neither of us are remotely near that. David, I'm puzzled by your question. The implicication is that the monarchy is in an unprecedented state or low point I mean, Republicanism in Britain is very much a minority pursuit. It's an enthusiasm for kind of political hobbyists who by definition are not representative of the great mass of people. Of course there's the scandal about the former Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, for example. R The one thing that has always been a feature of the British monarchy has been terrible sex scandals you know, sort of soap opera style, shenanigans, terrible secrets, skeletons and closets and so on. I mean, this is absolutely standard. This is not a bug. This is a feature. Oh, I agree, but it doesn't have the contemporary media accelerative aspects that you have now. No, it doesn't. But in a world in which the contemporary media is accelerating every story, this is just one story among many. So So it doesn't stick. you're saying. No, and for the monarchy to change, for the change to the system, just think about how this would work. I mean, people always talk about this very airily Oh, there could be a change. they could get rid of the monarchy people I don't understood anymore. What it would require would be for an elected government to decide that it wanted to spend It's five year mandate on an extremely controversial referendum and an unpopular one. that would an un popular one that all the indndicators show that they would lose in changing to a republic. I mean, there's ab I don't think there's ever been a majority in the history of opinion polling for change to a Republic. So that would have to be a labor government In doing so, even if they wanton They would immediately shed a large proportion of their own Heartland constituency That is to say Working class, small C conservative Patriotic monarchist labour supporters. Would any labour government take that risk? It's unthinkable, I would say I mean, I would say the only perhaps One possibility is that the United Kingdom breaks up Um There is a kind of greater strain of Republicanism, I would say, in Scotland or in Wales, I mean, let alone in Northern Ireland. So that is one possibility. I mean, I I don't think that's going to happen either because I think the appeal of the status quo in times of trouble is always immense. kicks in. And I think that that the very, you know, the the the kind of the very predatory ure of contemporary media culture actually can work in the monarchy's favor. So Of course, Prince Andrew, you, being arrested, absolutely shocking, lots and lots of articles saying this is the end of the monarchy. And then I think within literally a month Um King Charles was visiting Washington and delivering a speech and everyone say, Oh, why can't we have the He's tremendous He's much better than Donald Trump. and Prince Andrew was forgotten That is true. So that is true. So Except in the daily mail maybe. I think the lack of the short attention span can work in favor of the monarchy as well as against it. Let me ask you a kind of business cultural question. There was recently an article about the decline of dad books. Dad books in American parliance usually toemes about modern history, biographies of Mount Beton as it were or Kings so and so or president so and so And it seems that you are among the guilty. that onene of the things that's cutting into the reading time Dad's everywhere is podcast sublime as they may be The rest is history. I would say not guilty My sense is from what friendriends who write dad books tell me is that if we mention at that boat on the rest of' history The sales of that dad book go up So I I hope that we are helping. people to go into bookshops and buy these huge volumes on to take an example the early Roman Empire I mean, it would be wonderful if that was happening. Well, I think I don't agree with Tom on this I think we're clearly responsible. And I think the reason for that is there is a move generally away from a literary culture So you see the sales of books generally in decline reading in decline. And the reason for that is so many people say, well, actually, you know, I wanted to find out about the Spanish Civil War You know what? I'm going to spend an evening watching YouTube clips about it or I'm going to listen to a podcast when once I would have picked up a book by Hugh Thomas or Paul Preston. And I think it would be mad for us to deny that's happening. I mean there is a move towards a much more visual digital culture, frankly I would deny that. You would disagree Ton. Again, I haven't looked at the stats on this. So obviously there are people who are sitting down and watching us on YouTube But I think the vast majority of people are listening to podcasts while they're driving, or they're on the walk, or they're going to work or whatever. So it's something that is in addition to the time that you might have to read a book You're right I hope you're right, because I think there's a lot of room in the world to listen to the rest of history, which I take great pleasure in as well as reading, reading, reading. Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you so much for having us. And happppy independence D, sort of Thank you, and to you, David. All the very best. Thank Thank you. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland of the Rest is History I'm David Ramnick Thanks for listening to the OTM Midwek podcast. Check us out on Reddit at R slash on the media, where you can connect with other listeners or suggest topics that you think we should cover Big Show Drops on Friday, I'm Michael Loinger