An interview with Dominic Sandbrook

Dominic Sandbrook is one of Britain’s best-known public historians, celebrated for his bestselling books on post-war Britain, his BBC documentaries, and the hit podcast The Rest Is History. With a distinctive blend of research and storytelling, he has helped bring modern history to a wide audience.

The Rest is History podcast, which he co-hosts with Tom Holland, gets over 15 million downloads a month. From single episodes about ‘The Mystery of the Pregnant Pope’ to an 11 episodes epic about General Custer and the Sioux in the lead up to battle of little bighorn.

Interviewer: So The Rest Is History has become a huge hit. Why do you think it resonates so strongly with listeners?

Dominic: I think one of the reasons the podcast works is because, perhaps unusually among historians, we actually really like the past. So we don’t tend to moralize and judge it. We enjoy the differences. Of course there are lots of dark chapters in human history, but I think we see the kind of dark comedy in the human condition. We love the stories of history. From the great dramas like the World Wars or the campaigns of Alexander the Great, or, you know, the rise of Russia, or whatever it might be, to the more niche stories.
We’ve done an episode about history’s greatest monkeys. We’ve done an episode about the most disastrous parties in history. I think what we try to do is bring to life how different the past was, the colour, the eccentricity and character of human history. And we approach it in a spirit of kind of unbridled enthusiasm, and I really hope that comes across.

Interviewer: People may not know that you and Tom Holland do all the research and reading. What’s the longest you’ve spent on an episode?

Dominic: Oh, well, the research for each episode completely differs based on what the subject is. Probably the most disastrous research story is: I suggested doing a single episode on General Custer, the Plains Indians, the Sioux, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. I set out to do the reading and, by the time I’d finished doing all the research several weeks later, we now had eleven episodes’ worth of stuff. So the Custer series is kind of our magnum opus. It’s our kind of War and Peace, and it’s basically a single episode that got completely out of hand. We do all the reading, because that’s the point. It’s a bit like… I always say it’s a bit like writing a review of a restaurant without actually eating the food. We obviously want to explore the past, and it can be days, it can be weeks. It just depends on the subject.

Interviewer: Do you ever sort of curse Tom for suggesting something when you’re halfway through a book or a paper researching a topic?

Dominic: Do I ever… I would never, ever have a single cross word for Tom. I would never say anything (laughs) bad about him at all. I’m sure the producers would back me up on this, as would Tom. But maybe there are times… some of his suggestions are more eccentric than others. His most eccentric one was that we devote an entire episode to the story of Chatham High Street. And amazingly, he managed to wear me down and we did go and do it. And do you know what? I remember saying to the producers afterwards that I probably laughed more that day, mainly off camera, than I had for years combined before then. So actually a lot of his mad ideas turn out to be good ones.

Interviewer: What was your favourite part of Chatham High Street?

Dominic: My favourite part of Chatham High Street? I mean, there are so many vape shops and tattoo parlours to choose from, it’s hard to really pin it down. I think there were a couple of moments. There was when we went to do a thing on a destroyer, and Tom’s research had run out at that point. And not only that, but he didn’t know, neither of us knew, the difference between a battleship and a destroyer. I’m still not sure that I know, actually. So we basically had to do multiple takes of the thing on the destroyer because we didn’t know what we were talking about. And the other one that sticks in my mind: we went and did a piece outside a pub. Tom had got this piece of paper, this important research he’d done that he was very proud of, and I remember looking at it and realising he’d literally just printed out a page from Kent Online. And again, I think it was multiple takes because I was just crying laughing so much. So yeah, Chatham. I mean, it’s a place of wonder. I recommend that everyone goes there. It’s brilliant.

Interviewer: Like, “Nelson reportedly drank here.”

Dominic: “Nelson reportedly drank here,” yeah, according to the barman’s mate. (laughs)

Interviewer: You’ve become one of the best-known historians of the English-speaking world. How has the podcast affected your life?

Dominic: Well, the very trite thing to say would be, “Oh, the podcast hasn’t changed me at all.” Obviously that’s not really true, because the podcast has opened up all kinds of opportunities for us that didn’t exist before. I think the biggest thing is, there are a couple of things. One is that basically now I’m stuck with Tom forever, and I have to talk to him every day. We’re basically perceived as a couple, as a partnership. So that was an unexpected development. But the wonderful thing about it is you’re communicating with so many people, and a lot of people who are not necessarily history buffs. I feel like we are at the centre of this kind of wonderful, mad story. And yeah, the podcast has also eaten my life in that I now do nothing but the podcast. Even if I’m trying to escape from the podcast, somebody will say to me, “Oh, I enjoyed your episode about Peter the Great,” (laughs) or whatever. So I think for my family, definitely, they feel like the podcast now lives with us and sort of squats over our lives. But in a good way. And we have amazing expeditions and adventures. We get to go to Australia on tour and things. We went to Sarajevo to record. We get to chat and… we have great adventures thanks to the podcast. So that’s a lovely thing.

Interviewer: Is there a person from history, from doing the podcast, you have a greater appreciation for?

Dominic: Well, obviously the person that we both love and admire more than any other is General Gordon. General Gordon, the great Victorian hero who was killed in Khartoum, was the person who really made The Rest Is History The Rest Is History. We did our first two-parter on General Gordon. Up to that point we hadn’t really got into telling mad stories from history. Instead it was generally witter. But then we did General Gordon and we realized there was great potential in basically taking somebody who might previously have been either cancelled or disregarded or whatever, and really getting into their story and bringing them to life. So General Gordon. I think the other big person who plays a part in my life now, who I never expected to, is the Kaiser. So the Kaiser’s (laughs) kind of taken over the podcast a little bit. I’d previously thought of him as purely a ridiculous figure and also quite a bad man. Now I see that he’s a ridiculous figure and a bad man, but also immensely amusing. He’s probably the… it’s a mad thing, but he’s probably the person from the show that people ask me most about. They’re like, “Would the Kaiser enjoy this?” You know, genuinely, when we’re asked a question on stage or something “Who would you like to have at your dinner party?” it’s quite common that someone will shout out from the audience, “The Kaiser!” (laughs) That’s not something, when I was doing my PhD (laughs) at Cambridge, that I ever envisaged being in. But it’s a lovely situation to be in. So yeah, the Kaiser.

Interviewer: You mentioned the Kaiser, so I have to ask, because it’s a big theme in the podcast: who has the best facial hair in history, do you think?

Dominic: Well, the viewers can’t see this, but you’ve got tremendous facial hair yourself. I think the best facial hair in all history… I think some of these First World War generals. There’s a series of Russian officers, so this guy called General von Rennenkampf, he’s got a moustache that’s wider than his face. There are some excellent beards in history. I think the very best facial hair… I mean, I like Paul von Hindenburg’s moustache. He was a German general from the First World War. It’s not the biggest, but I think it’s perfectly formed. British moustaches in the First World War tend to be a little bit… you know, they’re quite tight, they’re quite repressed. Whereas the further east you go, the more extravagant the facial hair. There’s some mad facial hair in the American Civil War actually. Ambrose Burnside, who was a Union general, he basically gave his name to sideburns because he has these crazy whiskers. But I think I’m going to give it to… I feel like you’ve got to give it to… yeah, Conrad von Hötzendorf. He’s got a good moustache. You’ve got to go Central Europe, I think. So basically a generic Central European, Austrian or German general around about 1915. Then you’re absolutely living the dream with the facial hair.

Interviewer: You were, for me at least, the best part of your sister podcast The Rest Is Politics US election coverage.

Dominic: That’s very kind of you, thank you.

Interviewer: Did you enjoy being live on air and reacting to things in real time?

Dominic: Yeah. So I was on an election livestream for The Rest Is Politics, and we were kind of livestreaming the US presidential election. It was exciting, actually, to be on air while the results were coming in. It was particularly exciting (laughs) because everyone else on the panel had made a terrible prediction that Kamala Harris was going to win. And I didn’t want Donald Trump to win. I didn’t want him to win at all, but maybe some shred of consolation was that I was being proved righter and righter as the night wore on, and the sort of rictus grins on the faces of my fellow panellists as they contemplated my triumph. That was quite, I can’t deny that was quite enjoyable. Although it was just so weird because we were broadcasting in British time but from America, so it was kind of, I don’t know, 8:00 a.m. in England (laughs), 3:00 a.m. in America or something. You just had no idea what time it was. It was like a mad fever dream in which Trump was coming back as president. But it was a really memorable experience, and there was great camaraderie. It was really good fun.

Interviewer: Your books now: your Adventures in Time series, introducing children to history. What did you learn from writing for a younger audience?

Dominic: So I had spent almost, well, probably 15, 20 years writing for adults. Writing for children was easily the most intellectually exciting thing I’d done, because basically it’s the first time that you’re writing for somebody that’s not you, who doesn’t know what you know, who doesn’t maybe share all the assumptions that you bring to it. I could really let loose and enjoy history rather than qualifying everything and, you know, being a bit of a pedant. I could give in to my enthusiasm for the subject. Imaginatively, it was a real challenge thinking, “What would a nine-year-old want? At what point are they bored? What do they know? What’s too difficult for them? What’s the limit of their tolerance?” But also it made me think about history, about the Second World War, the First World War, the Reformation, with greater clarity than before, because basically you have to make choices for a child. Children are not stupid. A 10-year-old is definitely not stupid, but you only have limited time, because they’ve got a limited attention span and you’re competing with other things.
So you basically have to make up your mind: “What was the Reformation all about? What’s going on?” You can’t bore people to death for six hours with all the specifics and qualifications. You just have to say, “This is what it was. Right or wrong, whatever.” And I found that really enjoyable actually. It was a great challenge.
And to get feedback from younger readers is so exciting, and sometimes quite touching actually. So yeah, I loved doing the Adventures in Time books.

Interviewer: I’m now going to take you through the decades through your books. Never Had It So Good. The grey '50s. Do you think we underestimate how optimistic and affluent postwar Britain was?

Dominic: I think people think of the ’50s as grey, but the ’50s weren’t grey. At the beginning, of course, it’s the aftermath of the Second World War: Britain is a bit bombed out and exhausted and hidebound by rationing. But definitely by the end of the ’50s there’s a tremendous sense of colour and optimism and excitement, because basically the economy is growing very fast and the landscape, intellectual, physical, economic, is changing so quickly. So yeah, I think the ’50s have always… basically because the ’60s generation loved to be horrible about their predecessors and to pretend that everything beforehand was dreary and drab. But it wasn’t at all. I think the ’50s were actually quite an interesting, colourful, and fun time, and one with a great sense of hope for the future, which is basically the one thing, of course, we don’t have anymore. (laughs)


Interviewer: White Heat. The ’60s. You’ve said the ’60s weren’t as revolutionary as people remember them being. Why do you think that myth persists?

Dominic: I think there’s a generation of people who went to university in the ’60s and had a tremendous time. They were only a tiny proportion of their age cohort, most people didn’t go to university at all, and it became very important to their sense of self-worth that they were pioneers. They saw themselves as tremendously fashionable and exciting rebels against the Victorianism of their parents. And I think a lot of them cast the day-before-yesterday as uniformly stuffy and repressive and unchanging. That’s completely wrong. My theory with the ’60s is basically: had it not been for the Second World War, the ’60s would have happened in the late 1930s and 1940s. It was coming anyway. You can see in the 1930s people challenging morals, jazz music, the word “teenager” is a 1930s marketing term. So the idea of the ’60s as this radical break. I actually think the ’60s is drawing on a long continuity of history. Of course, the other thing is that for most people, life in the ’60s didn’t change in all the ways we think at all. They became more affluent, they might have moved house, got their first car, gone on their first foreign holiday but they absolutely weren’t living the kind of Carnaby Street, psychedelic Summer-of-Love dream that everybody thinks. So I think the whole period has become reduced to a series of quite tiresome clichés. For most people, life wasn’t like that at all, and they probably saw much less discontinuity between the ’60s and the ’50s than we think.

Interviewer: Do you think in modern British history there’s a more revolutionary time?

Dominic: Yes. I think the most revolutionary moment in very contemporary British history was probably the 1980s. In the 1980s there’s a big rupture because of Thatcher and Thatcherism. If you look at the stats, people starting to live together before marriage, for example sexual behaviour really changes. It’s in the ’80s that you have the ramifications of the reforms around homosexuality from the late ’60s becoming more visible. You have arguments about race and identity starting in the 1980s. There’s a definite sense, when Mrs Thatcher leaves office in November 1990, when you look back to when she arrived in 1979, that Britain had changed enormously: the economic fabric, de-industrialization, privatization, all of those things. So I think that is probably the biggest break in very contemporary British history.

Interviewer: In the ’70s we have two books: State of Emergency and Seasons in the Sun. They’re a lot darker and more dramatic than the previous books. Do you think Britain really lost control, or was the drama overstated?

Dominic: There’s definitely a point in the mid-1970s, ’74, ’75, when a lot of people in politics think that something’s going really disastrously wrong and there is a loss of control. There’s a point in 1974 when we’ve had two general elections, something like five states of emergency in three years. We’ve had an oil crisis and an energy crisis and blackouts; two miners’ strikes; the ongoing, almost low-level civil war in Northern Ireland; bombs going off in London and so on. There’s a sense in the middle of that year, 1974. Among civil servants, politicians, elite people, that things are really going downhill quite fast. People are even saying, “Could there ever be a military coup? Could a strongman take power?” It seems unbelievable now that that happened in my lifetime. I think there was a really pervasive loss of confidence in Britain itself, in British government and the state. And of course we know that it didn’t lead anywhere because, basically, at the end of 1979 there’s a strong government, whether you agree with it or not, a strong and very decisive government elected, and it’s clear that things are still working. But people didn’t know that then. So while for most people life just goes on because they’re not really interested in politics, for people who were, there were definitely moments in the 1970s when they thought, “This country’s kind of finished.” We had to go in 1976 to the International Monetary Fund for a then-record bailout. When you’re doing that, and nothing works, and there are massive public sector strikes, and terrorist bombs going off in your capital city, I think it’s understandable why people think, “We really have lost control and things are spiralling in a way that could end in a really dark outcome.” We know that it didn’t, but I can completely see why people thought it at the time.


Interviewer: To touch on the late ’70s as well, Who Dares Wins, the first three years of Thatcher. So much seems to happen in these three years: recession, inner-city riots, Northern Ireland hunger strikes, the Falklands, triangle sandwiches from M&S. People seem to hate this period. Do you think that’s deserved, or will we look back more fondly as time goes on?

Dominic: I think it’s bonkers to hate any given period. The late ’70s and early ’80s. It was a very difficult time for a lot of people because of the massive recession at the beginning of the ’80s. Unemployment shooting up to probably about four million, because the government was constantly massaging their figures. It’s easy to see why, in some parts of the country, those industrial areas that were hard hit, people regarded these as terrible years. But they’re also incredibly exciting years. The rise of the computer; all kinds of novelties from fashion to food; New Romantic synth-pop music. It’s a fascinating period to me because it’s simultaneously so dark but also so lurid, you know? Exciting. When I wrote Who Dares Wins about that first Thatcher government, so much happens, so packed with events. And as a writer you have a brilliant central character, almost a Dickensian caricature, who some people hate and some adore; a government intent on pushing through a controversial experiment. And then you have a war on top of that. You couldn’t want for a better canvas. Do I think it’s wrong to think of it as uniquely bad? Yes. So many of the contours of today’s Britain were sketched out in the early 1980s. Just think of computers, for example. In the early ’80s. I can remember this, and anyone my age will, there’s a point when nobody has a home computer, and then there’s a point when everyone in the class has their own computer. And the gap between those two things is maybe, in a middle-class family, 18 months. That’s transformative. I remember watching programmes, rereading this when I was doing the book: people saying, “You could one day do your bank account on a computer. You could one day book a holiday. Who knows, you could talk to people in other countries.” All this kind of thing.
That is revolutionary and really exciting. And if you weren’t terribly political and you weren’t affected by the really abrasive economic changes, there was something quite exciting about life in the early ’80s, I would say.

Interviewer: While we’re on Thatcher as well: I hear you’re writing an opera about Thatcher. How is that going?

Dominic: So this is a brilliant project. A composer called Joseph Phipps came to me and said he wanted to write an opera about Margaret Thatcher, would I consider writing the book, the libretto? I’d never done it before, but I thought, “Yeah, why not?” I have written about half of it, and I have to say I’ve found it enormously enjoyable. She’s a very operatic character. She went to the theatre in 1977, two years before she became Prime Minister, when she was Leader of the Opposition. Her speechwriter, Sir Ronnie Miller took her to see Evita, and she wrote him a thank-you letter afterwards. You can see it in the Thatcher archives, you can see it online, she said, “Who knows, maybe there’ll be one day an opera about me, called Margaret.” So I thought, Well, that’s the perfect starting point. This is the opera. She was a kind of diva, she had a diva quality. She loved performing, playing different parts, always the centre of attention, very conscious of her showbiz-y side, and that makes her a perfect character for an opera like this. So yeah, I’m really enjoying it.

Interviewer: In writing your books, has your view on 20th-century Britain changed?

Dominic: Yes, I suppose in writing my books I probably have thought about Britain in different ways. Number one: I’ve always tried to make real efforts to see Britain outside the bubble. There’s a tendency for historians to emphasise London and metropolitan people like themselves. One thing I’ve always tried to do is write about people and places that are maybe not very glamorous or fashionable, but are probably more representative of the majority. And the thing that’s always so fun about writing contemporary history is you realise how, for most people at any given moment, the big political story of the day is totally irrelevant. They have no idea what it is. They’re just getting on with life. There’s a great subterranean continuity to British life. That’s definitely one of the things that’s struck me. The other thing that’s struck me is how lucky Britain is. Almost uniquely fortunate in the 20th century. Never occupied, never invaded (apart from the Channel Islands), doesn’t really lose a war. Almost every other major country in Europe has a very different experience. Britain has no civil war, no revolution. Think of all the countries with coups, occupations. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy; Belgium and Holland both occupied. That’s made us fortunate, but also complacent. Still, it’s a good place to be, right? You’d rather that than having been occupied or divided by civil war or revolution. Has it made me prouder to be British? Well, I’m pretty proud to be British anyway, so there could be no changing that.

Interviewer: When you look back on 20th-century Britain, do you see progress or just change?

Dominic: I’m not a great believer in progress in history generally, because I think what tends to happen is people use their own prejudices and assumptions as the yardstick, and then measure the past by how much it accords with their own predilections. By our own standards, obviously there’s been loads of progress. We’re more tolerant, probably kinder, more indulgent, more patient; less likely to hit our children, for example. There are other ways in which life has changed clearly for the better. Most people at any point in history want to live long, happy, healthy lives with lots of cultural opportunities. We do that more than any generation before us. We literally live longer. Healthcare is better. We’re overwhelmed by cultural choice; we’re not limited to two TV channels. We can travel more than our predecessors ever could. There are lots of things that are wrong, and lots of things they would judge us for. I always think, what would my grandfather think about internet pornography, or drugs, or any of these things? He’d be horrified and say, “Why have they gone backwards?” But by and large, I think I’d rather be alive now than at any previous point in British history.

Interviewer: There seems to be a feeling that the UK has lost its way. Is there a moment you think it started to go wrong?

Dominic: I think we’ve had a pretty bad ten years as a country. That said, there isn’t really a country in Europe that’s had a brilliant ten years. (laughs) Maybe Poland, actually. Poland’s had a fantastic 20 years and changed enormously. That’s true of a lot of Eastern European countries.
But if you look at Germany, France, the United States, they’ve all had rocky rides. Politically, I think we’ve had… a very bad run since, let’s say, 2016, of prime ministers who’ve struggled to govern or been palpably not up to the job. There’s been instability and a definite diminution in quality. I think there are lots of great things about Britain, but we probably do need, this is a terrible cliché. I’m embarrassed to be saying it, playing Dominic Sandbrook bingo with myself, but we probably could do with a prime minister who’s going to be there for quite a while, who has a very clear vision, who can make the machinery of government work and is prepared to risk massive unpopularity because they are confident that in the medium term they’ll be rewarded for it. That was the story with Thatcher. To some degree you could say it was the story of Clement Attlee, even though he wasn’t in for as long. We need a government that is decisive, that gets stuff done. Crucially we could do with economic growth, that’s the thing really bedevilling us, I think. And then there’s obviously a slight identity crisis born of massive migration, arguments about identity, all those things. I’d love to see a government at least dampen down the fires, because there’s a fractious, frustrated, angry tone to political life at the moment that I think is not a good thing at all.

Interviewer: Do you think history really repeats itself? And if so, could you give us a look into what you think the future holds?

Dominic: I think history never repeats itself. People who think it repeats itself are mistaken. And historians are terrible judges of politics and of the future. So if you think knowing about the past gives you a magic wand or a crystal ball, you’re mistaken. I think the lesson of history is that history keeps happening (laughs) and unexpected things happen. In 2010, who would have thought that in the 2020s there’d be a war in Europe, that COVID would happen, that Britain would be out of the EU. All those things?
So the unexpected will come in the late 2020s and 2030s. I would hope that… the lesson of history is that life always somehow goes on, no matter how horrific. You hope that’s still going to happen, and we’re not going to blow ourselves up in a nuclear war or be killed by AI robots. Most people at any given moment are just trying to get on with their lives. That’s the big theme of what I’ve written about: the quiet rhythms of life actually interest me.

Interviewer: Is there any sort of historical myth you’d like to debunk? Something everyone is mistaken on.

Dominic:The biggest historical myth of all, which nobody should believe, is that Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas. See, I really like Oliver Cromwell. I know that will go down well with any viewers you’ve got in Ireland. My wife is Irish, so I’ve now forgotten whether I really do love Cromwell or whether I just do it to annoy her. But the mask has become the man now, I can’t tell the difference. (laughs) Everyone thinks he hated fun because he was puritanical and he banned Christmas. He did not ban Christmas. The restrictions (laughs) on Christmas, completely understandable and reasonable restrictions, were brought in by Parliament before Cromwell ever was Lord Protector. Actually, he was a really fun-loving person. He was a great chap. There’s an account of him at his daughter’s wedding playing pranks on the other guests and smearing sweetmeats on their seats so they would sit on them and stuff. I think that’s tremendous banter. He obviously was a splendid person. So I think it’s really important that all your Cubitts fans share that view.

Interviewer: And finally, I won’t make you stay in the past, but is there any event from history you’d like to witness? Then you can jump back to the present day.

Dominic: Oh, so many events from history that I’d love to see. I think… I’ll tell you what I’d love to see. So many of the great events involve a lot of bloodshed, and I think that’d actually be kind of horrific. You might think, “Oh, I’d love to be at the Battle of Trafalgar,” but actually there’s people’s brains being splattered all over the deck. It would be awful. So I’m going to choose a moment with no violence, and it’s the moment when the Roman army enters Alexandria after the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra. You have two of the most extraordinary people in history: the young Octavian, who becomes Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, coming face to face with Cleopatra in the palace in Alexandria. To have been there to see these two incredible characters. The meeting of two civilizations. In fact three civilizations: Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek, and she’s the Pharaoh of Egypt. So you’ve got Greece, Egypt, and then Rome, the newcomer. These three civilizations meeting in one room; the last reigning pharaoh, the first Roman emperor, in a city that’s so exciting and forward-looking. A city of science and philosophy, the Great Library, the Museum and so on, Alexandria. What a… I mean, that would be a brilliant long weekend. That would be a great trip. And then once you’d contracted dysentery (laughs) and been set upon by people who thought you were a witch, you could come back home and tell everyone all about it. So that would be my trip.