The Rest Is History - 1. Greatness

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

How did certain people come to be called ‘the Great’? Is the notion of great men and women outmoded? Can anyone today be reckoned ‘great’? Historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook take a wide ranging stroll through the annals of time, from Nero to Nixon, with a bit of Trump thrown in for good measure. Produced by Jack Davenport Exec Producer Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello and welcome to the first episode of The Rest Is History, our new podcast about all things historical. I'm Dominic Sandbrook and my sidekick, as I like to refer to him, although he would no doubt refer to himself as my puppet master, is opposite me and it's Mr Tom Holland. Hello, Tom. Thank you very much, Dominic. What an ambivalent introduction that was um lovely to be here you're looking forward to the podcast

done a podcast before i've never done a podcast before i've been on lots but i've never actually done one but since everybody else in britain is doing one i thought that that not one like this though not one like this no not one like this this is going to be something completely and radically new well that remains to be seen tom credentials um historian of the ancient world early middle ages um and i've just written a book dominion which um goes from uh 480 bc right the way up to the present day history of christianity called dominion available in all good bookshops. Very good book, even if I say so myself. A very good book, Tom. And you?

And I write about modern Britain mainly, a little bit in America, but mainly in modern Britain. So I've written a series of books about Britain since the 1950s, and the most recent one is called Who Dares Wins, and it's all about Margaret Thatcher in the 80s and Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and the Falklands War and everything you would ever want to know. So I'm batting for the ancient Romans. Dominic is batting for Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and the Falklands War and everything you would ever want to know. So I'm batting for the ancient Romans. Dominic is batting for Duran Duran. We're

covering all the bases there, I like to think. So essentially, we can cover almost anything. And that, of course, is the great joy of podcasts. And Dominic, what do you want to talk about today? Well, I think we should start as we mean to go on. And I think we should start with greatness. Who is great? What is is it and why aren't people great anymore so tom yes as a great man yourself yes throw some some great figures from history at me well the the biggie of course is uh alexander see the first great well i you see i think what's interesting is that the the idea of somebody being great isn't actually a kind of natural thing. It's something that's bred of very specific cultural circumstances.

And the idea that somebody can be great is originally a Persian idea. The great king, is it? The great king. So he's the king of kings. He's the great king. That's how he's known. So the king of Persia was superior to... Because the Persian Empire is the greatest empire that's what the that's how he's known so the king of persia was was superior to because the persian empire is is the greatest empire that anyone had had ever seen and i i just

increasingly think that basically everything goes back to persia ultimately everything kind of you know you follow very well with people in iran well you follow things extremely always goes back back to persia and so the king the king of persia is the great king. And then Alexander III of Macedon conquers the Persian Empire. So he then becomes the great king. So this is what, the 4th century BC? Yeah, 4th century. So he dies and his empire splits up and his various generals kind of scavenge over it like a pack of hyenas. And they all want to be like

alexander and there's there's there's one king in particular who called antiochus who who goes back into persia tries to reconquer it and he adopts the name of great it seems so he's calling himself the great king so there's a hint there that this is where it begins but then what what actually happens is that um it's the romans who pick up on it so the first reference to alexander is in the mid third century a.d or b.c sorry b.c b.c and and and they are calling him um alexander magnus alexander the great so so so basically i mean what i'm saying is that the the idea of greatness is comes history. Yeah. So basically that's mine. Yes.

But you, of course, you're a modern historian. So, I mean, basically you don't have great people. No, not really. So I obviously, I do my research for this podcast. So I looked at the Wikipedia list of people who are great. I found another website, which I'm rustling my paper to prove that I've done my research. Another website which begins with the words, history has produced at least 38 great people. 38?

At least 38. It's very precise. There could be some more out there. It could be 43. Waiting to be captured. Who knows? But anyway, let's go back to the Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is obviously the thing that people will look at. So what's the most recent?

So I think the most recent is the Emperor Meiji of Japan. He dies in 1912. So he's the guy who opens up Japan to the West. He modernizes Japan and sort of pushes it into the 20th century, if you like. But everybody before that. So the last people that we think of as great are kind of Peter the Great. Catherine the Great. Catherine the Great.

So we're talking beginning of the 18th century. Then we've got the enlightened despots. I mean, I found that excruciatingly boring, actually, when I did them for A-level. Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great, people who modernise Russia and Prussia and these sort of central European monarchies. But who is deciding that they're great?

I mean, is there a kind of selection committee, like the Nobelbel prize no i think it's um it emerges from the sort of immediate historiography so it's a kind of creation of victorian writers and i think greatness in this when we talk about people being great i think a lot of it is to do with sort of nation building state builders and i think it's the thing that victorians did i mean as you know the victorians or 19th century um nationalists generally were all about finding historical roots of nation states and arguing that you know they would sort of delve back into the archives to prove that a given nation had sort of been born unsullied and pure at the dawn of history and i think they looked for founding fathers,

and they were generally fathers. I mean, there were Catherine the Great, I suppose, but by and large they're men, they're warriors, who've welded their people into this sort of mighty realm or modernised it or something like that. So in which case, why is George Washington not George the Great? Because he's the essence of a founding father. Well, this is the thing, isn't it?

Is it because it's a republic? So you can't have great men in republics? No, you do have great men. And to just concentrate on America for a second, they don't use that terminology, but they do use the terminology of the founding fathers. And they have, you know, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Monument. They have all these kind they have you know the lincoln memorial the jefferson monuments they have all these kind of you know you can go to kind of monticello thomas jefferson's house and kind of do

homage um to the great man but i think but i think the fact that they're not it's they're on the money abraham the great it's not george i think that that does suggest that there is an issue with in republics yeah and indeed democracies with with the idea of you know well i definitely calling someone great i absolutely think these are all monarchs so i think is there anyone who's called who who is who's called great who's not a monarch i mean pompey the great i guess there are some earls and bishops i mean i'm going back to the wikipedia but it's a bit desperate basically they're all they're all monarchs so yeah you i think almost by isn't it true that by definition in a democracy you can't have a the great because an awful lot of people often actually a majority may well have voted for other candidates they

will have voted against them but also it's an effect isn't it that it's an offense against the very idea of of of democratic yes you know the the kind of implicit egalitarianism of a republic or a democracy. The idea that there are great people, great men who put democracies in their shadow is seen as being threatening. The rest of democracies do have that, don't they? Yeah, but they don't call them great.

What about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Father Turk, the founder of modern Turkey? So there's a man, I mean, effectively, I mean, he is, you know, Ataturk the Great. But he's another kind of founding father who's sticking it all together. Yeah. So, yeah. So there are some 20th century examples. I mean, in, I don't know, in Ireland is Eamon de Valera.

But he's not Eamon the Great, is he? I mean, it's just, and i think also the other thing is so so the idea of of great men yeah they're generally men aren't they yeah of great men as as the people who power history forwards that's that's a very kind of that's thomas carlyle the great victorian victorian history who very, very kind of keen on that idea. And that then, Carlisle was one of Hitler's favourite authors. I mean, so Hitler in The Bunker is, I think I'm right in saying, has Carlisle's biography of Frederick the Great, who is seen as great because it looks as though Prussia is going to be crushed by all the enemies that are amassing around it.

And Frederick wriggles free and lives to do another day. And do you know what, Tom? When Roosevelt died, just before the end of the Second World War, and Roosevelt died, Goebbels and Hitler have this conversation in the bunker where they say this is just what happened to Frederick the Great and history is repeating itself. His enemies died just when he was going to be beaten and we are just like Frederick the Great And we are going to wriggle free. So you're right.

There's a sort of shadow hanging over. So Frederick, the king of Prussia in the 18th century, who essentially raises Prussia up from being a kind of Hicksville, backward, no-hoper of a power, to being one of the great powers of Europe and kind of essentially the stepping stone to what becomes United Germany in the 19th century. So yeah, anything that hits into, obviously,

becomes problematic, to put it mildly. Old classical music. Well, so the sense that the fascists identified with that idea of greatness. But lots of people identify with greatness, don't they? First of all, all children reading history books identify with the idea of greatness because they see themselves as the great only if it's safely in the in the past so it's safe to read about alfred the great because but not about but but all parts of the great no well yeah or mario the great or

snarling the great well here's a big because because they because obviously the if you're a fascist then you believe in great men shaping destiny. So it's fine for Hitler and Mussolini to broadcast themselves as being great. Stalin and Mao are just as influential figures, but they see themselves as the expression of the will of the people. And so even though Mao is the great helmsman or whatever, you can't talk in that sense of of of greatness that is associated with with monarchs because i don't buy that at all i think you did too you do talk about that with them you don't talk about stalin being great stalin the great whereas hitler i think would he would you know that would have been he wouldn't stalin's iconography was all about stalin as a great man i mean the the the images of him the father of his people, just like Hitler, he would get love

letters from ordinary Russian women. He would, you know, he was sort of projected as this colossus, larger than life, supremely wise, great military leader. Yes, yes. But officially, Stalin is the expression of the will of the people. That's what he's about. Marxism is founded on the idea that individuals, great people, are just kind of surface froth. That what matters are the great tides of economic history, of class warfare. That that is really what determines history.

And so any notion that great individuals shape history is a delusion. And of course, I mean, there are all kinds of paradoxes about Stalin's primacy. But I think that ideologically, there's a problem for communists with talking about great people.

But they always have it, don't they? They always have it. I mean, we've all seen those red square parades where they have, you know, the icons. Lenin literally mummified like a pharaoh. I agree, there are paradoxes, but officially. Hey, isn't this interesting? So Lenin's body mummified right a pharaoh. Right, exactly. I agree. There are paradoxes, but officially. Hey, isn't this interesting? So Lenin's body, mummified right now in Red Square,

you know, if it weren't for COVID, we could go and be doing this live from Lenin's tomb. That's Alexander the Great again, all over again, isn't it? His body was kidnapped after he died and taken to Alexandria as a sort of badge of authenticity for the Ptolemies, the dynasty that took over Egypt, which is basically what Lenin's successors did with his body. Yes.

So all you're missing there is the words, the great. Yes, but I think... I mean, everything else is the same. I think what it suggests is that there is a kind of inherent desire on humans to kind of acknowledge and indeed kind of prostrate yourselves yeah before the idea of greatness great but that in the modern world is is is in conflict with a reluctance to to express it and that that's part of republics it's part of of democracies it's and it's definitely part of kind of communist states but what's so interesting is that so in the modern world,

the people who believe in greatness tend to be, should we say, harder core than people who don't. But even sort of your most, you know, high-minded sort of, I don't know, guardian reading vegan believes implicitly in greatness, don't they? Because you have, I mean, to question, I mean, Nelson Mandela? Is he not great? Is he not this inspirational figure who transcended his times? Yes.

Martin Luther King? They have Martin Luther King Day in America. Yes, okay. Okay, so that is a kind of different expression of what greatness is, and that, I guess, would be moral greatness. It's not just moral greatness it's not just moral greatness is it it's it's it's surfing the tide of history it's you know he was on the side of history and yeah the ark of justice yeah the ark of justice that's the parak obama will be

in that in that sort of box one day won't it yeah yeah but i guess i guess that um there is a kind of qualitative difference there because because mandela is seen as being great because he's seen as morally great same with again with martin yes and gandhi um and it's it's not a it's not greatness in the kind of alexander mold of um but but if you were a child you would you know a thousand years ago or something would you not grow and you were you sort of noble parents or something and you've grown up being taught by a monk wouldn't you be taught that these great figures were people to emulate that they had moral qualities as well as purely martial ones that alexander had courage and well i think i think that's interesting because actually a thousand years ago if you're in europe you would have a very christian perspective on this and i think there is a deep ambivalence in in in monasteries for

instance about um kings yeah alfred is there there are hints in the sources that there were monks who um felt that alfred was perhaps a little bit too pushy um but equally there are um you know the part of of why monks subsequently are able to enshrine Alfred as great is because he's seen as having been a great patron of the church. There's a kind of, but there is a Christian ambivalence towards figures like Alexander who are pagan, who are definitely seen as being steeped in blood. The idea that, that martial greatness is the definition of greatness,

I think is a kind of legacy of the kind of ambivalent Christian attitudes towards greatness that we've inherited. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment

and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. So here's somebody who was definitely inspired by Marshall Grainis, Churchill.

Right, so Churchill's really... Now, Churchill, we could do a billion podcasts about Churchill and not exhaust the sort of stuff to be said or the public enthusiasm. Is he great? I mean, I would say actually flawed, but I mean, everybody's flawed because we're all human. I would say yes. I would say it's ludicrous to say he's not a great figure who, you know,

has become an icon, who's become a symbol of the nation, who, and actually all the flaws are part of greatness because all, everybody we've talked about has been flawed. Do you think Churchill was great? Yeah. So I think, I think that Churchill, well, the kind of way that people have been reacting to Churchill recently highlights the way in which the meaning of great has evolved, I think. So I think Churchill is great in the classical sense of it. He is a great man who, in an hour of crisis, saves his country.

That's something very Greekreek isn't it yeah this so he's he's in that sense he he he is great because although he is personally flawed those flaws actually only serve to emphasize the scale of his achievement yeah in rallying and saving his country and and indeed much more by that well people bought that at the time didn didn't they? Yeah, absolutely. People in the 1940s knew what... Yeah, absolutely. So he is, you know, he is the British lion personified. I think that one of the reasons why his statue keeps getting attacked now is that the sense of greatness has evolved and become what we were saying, what I was saying about Mandela or Martin Luther King, that greatness, you have to be morally great.

And I think that there is a feeling that Churchill, on that measurement of greatness, doesn't quite measure up because he's seen as you know he he has racist views you mentioned the arc of history he's seen as somebody who's on the wrong side of a lot of yes what he i mean he was he was he i mean even by the standards of the time he was a huge reactionary yeah um but in a way the fact that people are a sort of daubing racist on his statue is proof of greatness because if he weren't great i mean who would care you know if he was some sort of middle ranking well i think i think that's that's that's a kind of um it's it's an attack not just on churchill but on a an understanding of greatness that is now very, very contested. Yes. And I think that it kind of,

also it kind of blurs in with the fact that the main island in the UK is called Great Britain. Obviously it has nothing to do with the fact that Britain objectively is great. It's simply the fact that the island of Britain is bigger than little Britain, which is Brittany. So that's why it's Great Britain. It's an expression of geographical size. But I think that obviously over Britain's imperial heyday, there was a tendency to say, yeah, we're great. Sort of nominative determinism, isn't it?

Nominative determinism yes and i think that that you know that that churchill is the kind of archetypal um poster boy for that idea of britain being great yes and so i think that also is something that is being attacked because part of of um i i suppose of of of what's in the back of the minds of of of people who see churchill as um a problematic emblem for britain is the sense that his model of greatness is something that is essentially to be rejected that it's yeah it's militarist that it's it's supremacist that it's um but all great all the people we've talked about yeah well yeah but that's into that with the exception of nelson mandela but but that again feeds into the idea that that we've talked about yeah well yeah but that's into that with the exception of nelson mandela and but but that again feeds into the idea that that we're talking about a model of

greatness an idea of greatness that feels old-fashioned does it feel old-fashioned though i mean yeah i think so uh if you're you know chinese xi jinping is i mean will he not be great one day but again this is the communist thing. He can't be enshrined as a great man, say, in the way that the emperor was or the first emperor. China obviously has always had a kind of sense of the great man because it's born with it. The first emperor is seen very much in the style that we've been talking about as the guy who who who who creates a state who fashions an empire who fashions an order and that inheritance runs right the way down to um the abolition of the um the figure of the emperor in the early 20th century but and and obviously Mao and and all you know Deng Xiaoping and and

and now that that there is a sense in which the figure of the emperor is someone who's absent. You know, it's kind of like losing a limb or something. But China is officially a communist state. And so I think ideologically there isn't a place for greatness in that kind of Thomas Carlyle sense. I think that's right. I think there is a place. I mean, the great helmsman Mao, all those people, you know, waving their little red books. Yes, but there is a play i mean the great helmsman mao all those people you know waving their little red books yes but but there is a tension there they can't they they the chinese cannot celebrate mao as great in the way that the fascists celebrate hitler is great it's odd isn't it because or even i mean i don't think that you would get a chinese general secretary for instance behaving in the

way that trump behaved when he returned from his COVID. Take his mask off and saluting. Yeah, I mean, I think all of those, that was whatever you think of it. Vladimir Putin would behave that way, wouldn't he? Putin absolutely would. He would take his top off. Putin absolutely would.

And actually the fact that Churchill, that Churchill, Jesus Christ, what a terrible slip. Trump. Freudian slip there. Oh, I'll never look at that. The fact that Trump, Jesus Christ, what a terrible slip. Trump. Freudian slip there. Oh, I'll never look that up. The fact that Trump does behave in that way, and obviously his make America great again stuff,

actually shows you just how deeply the concept of greatness is embedded in the American sort of political psyche. The whole iconography of the presidency, actually, is all the great man kind of stuff, isn't it? Yeah, and that kind of feeds back to what we were talking about, you know, about the relationship between Rome and America. I think that there is a huge part of what makes many, many Americans very, very uncomfortable about Trump is the sense that he is pushing that model of greatness too far.

It's odd, isn't it? You know, when I was doing my PhD in history, the idea that I'd be doing a podcast about greatness would have been anathema, because the very idea of greatness to sort of academic historians is complete nonsense and unthinkable and not worth giving house room to.

And we would have these sort of seminars where somebody would say, X is great, everyone would kind of sc scoff but then we'd go to the pub and have this big debate about who was greater pele or maradona or whatever so the idea of greatness well sport it yes because in sport you can measure it well you can't measure it though can you you can't measure kind of can muhammad ali of course famously said i am the greatest he basically created his own myth which all great men and women do to some extent, didn't they? And Maradona the same.

But part of the appeal of sport is that it provides a stage on which the desire for hero worship can be channeled safely. Yeah. I mean, history is no different, surely. No, because I think that history suggests that giving a know, giving a stage to people who see themselves as great and who are seen by other people as great can threaten disaster if you live in a democracy or a republic. See, I think if we went into Waterstones now,

to the children's section, to the history section, I mean, they have the horrible histories, but it is all, you know, inspiring girls, wonderful girls or whatever, those kind of books you know the ones i mean and it's amelia earhart mary curie agatha christie rosa parks i mean rosa parks is somebody who's clearly conceived by lots of people as great as a great figure i don't think the word great is adequate though i think i don't think that's i don't think the model of greatness as it's traditionally understood she has the moral qualities that allowed her to be on the right side of history, to transcend her time, to lead her people, to be the vessel for something bigger than herself.

But again, this goes back to the sense in which, you know, if we are going to talk about people like that as being great, it's because we're talking about moral greatness. But can you, I mean, you're basically saying there was martial greatness and then moral greatness, but I think the two have always been. I think it's because we're uncomfortable with the word saint, but I think that actually,

that actually someone like Mandela or Martin Luther King. Oh, because we would have otherwise called them a saint. Yeah, that the emotions that they inspire

are the emotions that traditionally saints have inspired. Yeah, that's very true. So they're kind of secular saints. I buy buy that um yeah and i think that that's like i think i think it's different people visit their their shrines they get relics but also they're seen as as as morally inspirational and that if you behave like them then you will make the world

a better place i think that that's a key part of it. Whereas if you behave like Frederick the Great, you're going to end up in a bunker in Berlin, being attacked by the Soviets. That's not the fate I want for myself. No, no. So I think that, I think it's kind of the ambivalent attitude to, well, obviously I think everything comes down to Christianity. But I think in the West, it's, we're uncomfortable, you know, we remain sufficiently Christian that we're uncomfortable with the idea of great men.

Yeah. Because we recognize that there is an aspect of that greatness that is kind of pagan almost. That it's a kind of classical ideal that morally we're uncomfortable with. But we're insufficiently Christian that we're happy now to talk about saints all right then tom you need to pick three people now who you think are great and they've got to be alive right now maybe they can be why why have i got to because i don't you're posing this really just i always look foolish i you see i i don't think that this is an age where people are great i tell you who will disagree with you boris johnson he believes yeah but i don't do you think one day people will call him

boris the great or boris the fat boris the fat boris boris not as fat as he was no no yeah so boris absolutely i mean he's a yeah and, and Trump, obviously. I mean, I think. Donald the Great. Yeah, I think that there's a kind of. With that accent. Maybe a definition of a populist leader is that he would like to think of himself as being called the great. Yes, that's true, isn't it? So that might be the definition. Nigel the Great.

Yeah, so by that measure, I don't think any of them count. But I'll tell you someone who I think may be remembered as the great and called the great would be putin who we've talked about yeah and the reason for that is i think that putin is creating his own reality yeah putin is creating a kind of um model of russian history in which great men do step forward and follow in the footsteps of the great leaders who came before so not stalin but catherine's great and peter great footsteps of the great leaders who came before. So not Stalin, but Catherine the Great and Peter the Great, and Peter the Great particularly. And so I think, you know, Catherine the Great reconquers the Crimea.

Which Putin has done. Which Putin has done. So I can imagine that Vladimir the Great... Yeah, I completely buy that. I think, you know, I'm not a Vladimir Putin fan, but clearly, let's say he does another 10 years, then he goes and people will say he's transformed his country, he's made let's say he does another 10 years, then he goes, and people will say he's transformed his country,

he's made it strong and respected on the world stage, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Russians will, well, will sort of bow down before his image for decades to come. Well, I think that it will be, he'll be called the great, if anyone's going to be called the great, I think he'll be called the great in Russia. I mean, I don't imagine he'll be called it in, not in Poland or Germany.

Anyway, well, you said three. i mean yeah do you have three i well that was a that was a bluff you see um uh well you were talking about saints i mean saint barack i think on michelle i mean they'll be they'll be saints won't they there'll be children's books about them but they probably are right now um british politicians know and actually we could but but the british stage is too small it's too small and also it's too too disputed isn't it it's too disputatious our political culture now for anybody to agree on a single figure um i mean macron clearly has aspirations to be right yeah and and so napoleon is is i guess in a sense the archetype of the great man who whose shadow hangs over the whole of the 19th century and so every french

great french leader has that so to goal yeah you would say was great the goalist ideal of france is great the goal is great and macron is clearly part of that tradition but actually the one person we haven't talked about probably the most powerful and respected leader, certainly the most respected leader, I would say, in the Western world is Angela Merkel. Angela the Great? Germans don't do greatness now, do they? Because the whole point of Merkel is that she's kind of anonymous.

Yes. That's why people... Her non-greatness is her calling card, isn't it? Yeah, kind of grey competence is what she's all about. She's the German John Major. Well, except that the one time where she she didn't take the kind of gray safe course was where she opened the borders and that's the arc of history again isn't it yes so yeah and so she very much saw that i think yeah saint angela so she has a you know she has a claim on that that meaning of the word, but not in any sense a claim on the kind of Frederick the Great model of greatness,

because that's the whole point of her. She will never understand. And the whole point of modern Germany is that it's a rejection of that tradition. So on that happy note, thank you, Tom, and thank you for listening. I'm sure we've provoked some thoughts, and we'd be very glad to hear your opinions, particularly if they're attacking Tom. Oh, Dominic, please, how does he get that in?

We'll be back next time. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.