[laughs]

... to enable people to gamble.

And so they would be sponsored by the aristocrats who had the deep pockets.

But the normal punter would come and put money on them.

And so that's why there were, there was always a kind of an interest in, um, these kind of weird teams that you mentioned.

[laughs] The, you know, the one man, the, the, the, the, the guys with the one leg playing the guys with the one arm.

A- actually, the oldest, um, women's cricket match that we know about was played, uh, outside Guildford.

Like, who were these, who were these people?

So Tom, is the game up for George Washington and the American cause? Are they going to abandon the rebellion, pay their taxes, obey the laws, and peacefully evolve into a warmer Canada? Well,

there's only one way to find out.

And spoiler alert, I'm afraid the answer to that is pretty disappointing.

But come back after the break and find out the worst.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Rest Is History.

It is the 23rd of December, 1777, and in Ballyforge, it's not looking like it's going to be the best Christmas ever.

So a very cold, miserable George Washington, even though he's got his lovely stone cottage, he's still not having a fun time.

British teeth, then you should pay

Tom?

I mean, just to broaden it out on, on, on, uh, uh, on why maybe it doesn't have the saliency in the British imagination that the French Revolution does, um, it relates to your question.

I think for, for people in Britain, the American War of Independence, the American Revolution, 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, um, 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 rent Great Britain and Ireland back in the seventeenth century.

And a lot of the tensions and conflicts that gave rise to the war in the seventeenth century were exported to the New World.

So whether it's the, um, the Puritans in Massachusetts or the Quakers in, um- In Philadelphia or the Catholics in Maryland.

Amazing.

Tom?

I mean, just to broaden it out on, on, o- o- uh, uh, 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 for, for people in Britain, the American War of Independence, the American Revolution, 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, um, 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 rent Great Britain and Ireland back in the 17th century, and a lot of the tensions and conflicts that gave rise to the war in the 17th century were exported to the New World.

So whether it's the, um, the Puritans in Massachusetts or the Quakers in, um, in Philadelphia or the Catholics in Maryland, those religious tensions to us are very familiar, and they seem certainly to me, very, very religious.

And just as in the 18th century in Britain, those religious tensions kind of blur and fade into what you might call kind of Enlightenment dynamics.

Amazing.

Tom?

I mean, just to broaden it out on, on, uh, uh, uh, on why maybe it doesn't have the saliency in the British imagination that the French Revolution does, um, it relates to your question.

I think for, for people in Britain, the American War of Independence, the American Revolution, 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, um, 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 rent Great Britain and Ireland back in the 17th century.

And a lot of the tensions and conflicts that gave rise to the war in the 17th century were exported to the New World.

So whether it's the, um, the Puritans in Massachusetts or the Quakers in, um, in Philadelphia or the Catholics in Maryland, those religious tensions to us are very familiar, and they seem certainly to me, very, very religious.

Amazing.

day one? From the moment he walked out?

From when he got those centuries in the one-day matches in South Africa.

Yes.

Because he was so completely not the kind of person I am.

I mean, he was kind of brash and brilliant and kind of in your face and just completely not me.

And maybe that's why I responded to him.

But I remember I was out for this.

Yeah.

Cyrus would think of, even of, of Iran of today?

Well, I think, I think he would find, uh-- I mean, he'd be bewildered by, by the fact that it wasn't the world's greatest power, which it was under him.

I think he'd be very disappointed by that.

[laughs] Um, I think he'd al-- obviously, he would also be, uh, bewildered by Islam, which by his standards is a relatively late arrival.

Um, but I think he would also be impressed by the measure of continuity he would find, the sense that the Iranians still have, you know, they have a cultural identity which reaches back not just centuries, but millennia.

Um, and as you said, Cyrus is kind of celebrated even under the, um, Islamic Republic as the great kind of father of Iranian civilization.

Now that, it has to be said, is a relatively recent import.

But for people who haven't heard you explain that, just unpack that idea because it's such an interesting sort of in- seemingly paradoxical idea, but you, but, but you, you know, you can explain it.

... will know exactly what you're, you're feeling there.

Yeah.

So, so I was thinking maybe, maybe it's time to stop.

And then, um, the, the team got set up, and it was set up by my friend Charlie Campbell, who's a writer, but also a literary agent.

Uh, and so he knew that Bloomsbury were flush with cash from Harry Potter, you know, which had just was going absolutely great guns at the time.

And so he pitched the re- the revitalization of this author's team as a book.

And the concept was that we would have matches at particular grounds that would be associated with particular themes to do with cricket.

W-what's been your, uh-uh, outside of your own specialty, what, what, uh, subject has fascinated you most, or what surprised you, uh, you know, look-looking into a particular subject?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, 90 odd years of chewing on bread had worn down the teeth, had worn down the gums, had exposed the nerves.

He was pharaoh, he was, you know, one of the greatest figures of ancient history.

His, I mean, every minute would've been excruciating agony.

Yeah.

Um, say the sixth century AD, um, possibly the worst year in human history, um, there's a kinda great climatic event, the world cools, the crops fail, there's plague, there's war, everything collapses.

Um, and I- I again offer that as a reassurance that things may seem bad now, but honestly they have been so much worse.

Because one of the things I think very few people now understand is how remarkable the mentality shift that came with Christianity was and how different Christian civilization is to the pre-Christian civilization in terms of its values, in terms of the things that it thought were important, in terms of the things that it believed about, you know, human beings and how they ought to act and what they ought to value and so on.

Yeah, I- I- I mean, it is radically different.

Um, but just to- to- um, presage what I'm going to say about that by pointing out that obviously nothing comes from nothing.

Christianity emerges from a particular matrix that you get in first century AD Mediterranean.

There are all kinds of influences on it.

Um, the- the- the Jewish most obviously, but also Greek, Persian, and the fact that it is born into the Roman Empire, I- I think without the Roman Empire, it would not have happened.

Um, and on the topic of the Roman Empire, I guess the- the- the clearest demonstration of the- the vibe shift, if you want to call it that, is to look at the- the classic emblem of Christianity, which is the cross.

Mm-hmm.

I, uh, well, I, I don't mean to lead the witness too much, but le-let's just start with what accounts for the rise and endurance of Christianity on your account.

Well, the rise, I, uh, nothing comes from nothing, so it, it is clearly emerges from a confluence of whole kinds of, of different cultural streams.

The most obvious of those, of course, is the inheritance of, of Hebrew scripture.

Jesus is saturated in that, Paul and, and, and the first Christians as well.

But there is also the influence of Greece, Greek culture, Greek philosophy.

Paul writes in Greek, and he invokes Greek philosophical concepts and indeed infuses them into his letters.

I think that you can discern more distantly because it is an influence on Hebrew scripture rather than directly on the world of the early church.

... philosophy has ever produced, and yet [chuckles] to know of, of the, the normalcy of crucifixion occurring in the background is peculiar.