Star Wars & History

From episode 27 of Dan Snow’s History Hit Podcast
Interviewee: Janice Liedl

Today, for a special, Christmas edition, I’m going to talk about one of the greatest stories in history, and it is history, because we’re told at the very beginning that it happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Yes, everybody, it’s the History Hit Star Wars Special.

Those films are science fiction, but of course they are deeply rooted in our collective past — in the stories that were told since Homer and the Iliad and the Odyssey. I’m going to talk to Janice Liedl. She is a professor of history at Laurentian University in Canada and she is co-editor of Star Wars & History. Now, she has been through all the films. She has picked out the historical events that have inspired Star Wars, consciously or unconsciously, and helped to create one of the greatest stories ever told.

Dan: Janice, you are obviously as excited as I am about this new Star Wars movie, but we are not going to put spoilers in, so let’s not — ; Have you seen the new one yet?

Janice: I saw it yesterday, but my lips are zipped. I won’t spoil it for anyone.

Dan: As true Star Wars fans obviously, it’s the three, if you like — the first three that were made that, I guess, we mainly want to focus on here. When you look at those movies, they are so resonant, aren’t they? They are absolutely riddled with historical references, historical inspirations. You were so inspired by that. You co-edited a book about it, which is fantastic.

Do you think that George Lucas set out to create an epic that was set in the world of science fiction but actually was very historic?

Janice: I do think so and I’m in a privileged position to know so, because I was approached, in part, to do this book on George Lucas’s interest. Now, he didn’t know of me in particular, but he wanted a book on Star Wars and history, to explain what he had thought about and to draw in even more what historians could say about the parallels between his movies and the world history.

Dan: So you have met George Lucas?

Janice: I didn’t get to meet in person, unfortunately. Our schedules didn’t work out. It was the middle of teaching term, but we were able to send questions to George Lucas along the way during the entire process and get his extensive feedback. He read every chapter that went into the collection. He gave us a lot of insights into how he saw history being part of Star Wars.

Dan: Okay, George Lucas was then, apparently, hugely interested in history. Is that correct? Different periods or one particular aspect of history?

Janice: He was interested in all sorts of different periods, from Antiquity to the 20th century. He had real ideas and real opinions about what had both inspired him and what he felt would be interesting to draw on broader historical parallels.

Dan: Okay. Well, let’s start with what he thought he was doing. I mean, obviously we got a lot of people sayVietnam. Does Vietnam loom large here? Is it the 2nd World War? What was he inspired by when he sat down and created Star Wars?

Janice: He did draw from a lot of different periods, by you’re right: Vietnam was a huge part of his idea of explaining the resistance and how the wars of resistance went. We have a chapter in Star Wars & History that looks upon the principles of the people’s war in history, and drew on parallels, from the American Revolution all the way through Vietnam on how the power of the people could really draw a successful war or rebellion into a revolution.

Dan: Let’s explore that a little bit, because what the rebel alliance do, of course, is — I guess, it would be pretty dangerous for an American film maker to be saying this, but similar to what the Viet Cong were doing, they were taking advantage of geography. For example, the ice planet Hoth or the Tatooine — the deserts, that feels a bit like the Middle East insurgency now, against Assad and against the Americans when there were in Iraq or, indeed, the Viet Cong insurgency in South-East Asia in the 1960s and 70s.

Janice: Yes, I do think that he was really drawing attention to what he felt was the rise of an American Empire that needed to think about what it was doing. Vietnam was one clear parallel, but he encouraged us then in the volume that came out, to draw parallels into the 21st Century and to think what are we doing when we talk about — ; when we have American soldiers or coalition soldiers talking about their opponents in the Middle East as if they are the opponents on Tatooine.

If you’re talking about Tusken Raiders and using that term for your opponents in the 21st century world, what does that say about us, as well as what does it say about history?

Dan: I think one thing I found really interesting about this parallel is you look at big empires through history dealing with rebellions. Well, the 20th century and there’s an over-reliance on technology, isn’t there? What comes out so powerful even in that first Star Wars film in a way that makes parts of the film look a bit shonky today. The rebels have got rubbish stuff.

I mean, the fights are pretty cool, but a lot of the equipment is less good than the Empire, and yet by relying on that equipment and not on the force, or on morale, or on an ideology that can actually be a great weakness. That’s been pointed again and again in that Star Wars trilogy, isn’t it?

Janice: Right, and the technology is not simply a weakness. It’s also an area which can cause an awful lot of fear and emotional resonance, as well, so he’s saying, “Beware of technology. It’s a double-edge sword.” Again, George Lucas requested that we include a chapter about the Death Star and I had naively suggested at first that maybe he was thinking a parallel could be drawn with the dreadnoughts of the 19th century — the great, expensive and often unreliable warships that were being rolled into service.

He said, “No.” For him, the Death Star was the atom bomb and the kind of terror that it had brought into the world stage in the mid-20th century. He said, “That’s the way that the Empire is using it in the Star Wars Galaxy.”

Dan: Yeah, so it’s interesting, because the way we think about the atom bomb, of course, is that, on one level, it worked. It actually knocked Japan out of the war. It strikes me that the Empire destroying — when the Death Star destroys the planet Alderaan and things, it’s more like the use of the B-52s in Vietnam that dropped millions of tons of bombs and actually didn’t achieve anything. In fact, it probably mobilised local people against — ; mobilised local people to join the resistance.

Janice: I agree with you. I think that’s a very apt parallel, indeed. One neat thing about this project is that, in every chapter, we were encouraged by George Lucas to say: yeah, this is a main point or a main parallel, but there are a lot of other historical elements you can look to and draw on in history.

I wouldn’t say that he wanted to argue that history repeated itself, but that he felt a lot of similar things that happened in different historical cultures over time, so he was very happy when we could say: yes, it’s not only a parallel between, say, the rise of the Emperor and the transformation of Rome from republic to empire, but let’s look at Napoleon. Let’s look at Hitler. Let’s look at these other great demagogues or these great seekers of power in history and see how they did it.

Dan: I think Napoleon is such a powerful example there, as well. I agree. That transition from some sort of all, be it a flawed republic to dictatorship. But what I think is really interesting is the indiscriminate nature of the imperial violence in Star Wars, and this is where George Lucas, I have to say, was incredibly prescient with the great insurgencies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The more technology you employed, the more damage you did, you were creating enemies. You were cre — ; You were boosting the resistance almost, weren’t you? If you look at the way that San Holo, and Luke, and Lando Calrissian, for example, are all pushed into resistance by the actions — by the overaggressive actions of the Empire.

Janice: Yes, I think that that’s a really important part of Star Wars to get into. It’s that you have this faceless Empire drawing so many people through the tragedies of their personal lives. Now, they’re pushed into actions that they might never have had and we can see in history all of these people who find themselves pushed into war by the sudden decrees of government, by the revocation of toleration in history.

I use, for example, students in my Western Civilisation class. I explain to them: when Louis XIV ended toleration of Protestant Huguenots in France in the 17th century, basically gave them a choice of either convert to Catholicism or to be punished in the galleys, he radicalised, he inspired a generation of fierce resistance. Some fled, but some fought.

That kind of point in history, again, happens over and over again in so many ways.

Dan: One other thing that’s really interesting is that actually here, in the UK, we’ve got a bigger example — we don’t really think about that much, which is the British counter-insurgency attempts to control insurgency in Ireland, after the First World War. There are stories, for example, of some of the earliest armed cars or tanks, if you like, driving into crowds in Southern Ireland and killing people with machine guns indiscriminately.

I mean, this is a classic case of a huge empire using the latest technology, but in ways that actually might have some small tactical success on the day, but strategically it’s a self-inflected wound of massive proportions.

Janice: I agree and I’m fortunate that one of my colleagues is a specialist on the black intents and he’s published extensively on them, so I did draw on his ideas and expertise when we were trying to pull this collection together. He also was pointing out that not only the use of terror and the mobilisation of the ordinary people, but that it gave use some great icons of the Irish resistance to all of this. They parallel the way in which the rebellion rises up and creates its new republic.

Dan: I think the Irish example is a really powerful one. Now, I think there are so many others. What other examples? Just choose, go random. I mean, whether it’s the role of women in resistance movements or guerrilla movements, what are some of the other parallels from history that you see reflected in Star Wars?

Janice: Well, definitely. Women in resistance, that was one of the chapters I worked on myself — I co-authored with my volume editor who’s a specialist in modern women’s history, so we met in the middle. The example George Lucas wanted us to start with was Cleopatra, looking at her as a resistance leader against the Roman Empire’s growth.

From there, we were able to pull out so many other things: women in the Spanish Civil War, for example, who fought directly against what they saw as the attack not only on their country but on their families and the way of life. My favourite were women in the French resistance, who were such an integral part, who were out there in the fields, laying bombs in German buildings and destroying these, leading guerrilla units. That’s certainly a part of it.

Another part that I think makes a really great example is to be looking at the world of smugglers, smuggling — the people on the sidelines of so many direct rules and power, like Han Solo, like Lando. Going back to the American Revolution, you have figures like John Adams, who starts on the shady side of all of these activities before becoming this great American statesman.

How do you make those moves? Well, it’s kind of like Lando and Han, going from smugglers into respectability, through serving this resistance force.

Dan: Do you know? I haven’t even thought about that. That’s brilliant, isn’t it? As you say, a lot of those early John Paul Jones — a lot these early maritime heroes of the USA or a lot of those Confederates blockade runners in the American Civil War began totally as criminals and dodgy guys — shady guys, who ended up becoming national heroes, because cometh the hour, you need those skill sets.

Janice: Right, and so it doesn’t matter where they learned that. Whether it was running around the authority’s figures or doing it in a more straightforward, acceptable way, you’d have more of those guys who have been on the outskirts of the lawful trade probably up and available when you’re ready to make your move.

Dan: Can we just come to the women thing again? Whenever I was watching this film as a kid — the first film; we’re going to call it the first film; this is so complicated in Star Wars, but — ; A New Hope, right?

Janice: A New Hope.

Dan: Yeah. I remember that Leia appearing after those guys and this men killing men, you were like, “Here we go: men fighting,” Leia has — ; brings a completely different tone to that movie, and it really struck me, even as a kid and looking back now.

Historically, your work on women in resistance movements: is there an element that you always think the Stormtroopers and the people around Vader don’t know how to deal with Leia, because she’s a woman, because of this ‘Can women fight? What are we doing here? Are we able to torture a woman?’

In your research, have you seen this, whether it’s the Nazis with the SOE operatives in occupied Europe or with female operatives they found elsewhere?

Janice: I think you’re right that it’s women upsetting the rules and being outside of that normal protocol. One of the great examples we did on the resistance fighters was looking at women spies for the Confederates in the US Civil War. One woman infamously smuggled a great deal of information in her hair style.

Nobody bothered to search her hair. They might have searched her carry goods and her wagon that she was travelling in, but her up-do preserved all this information, till she got through the enemy lines and was able to deliver the data.

Dan: I love that. Articles we’ve seen in more recent insurgencies in the Gulf in Afghanistan, there’s a whole issue around women and their clothing, and smuggling arms, and then cultural sensitivities around searching women, so it’s a very, very difficult area.

Janice: You’re right, and I think exploiting those kind of weaknesses, running around those expectations was one more way in which the rebellion of Star Wars could stand outside of the normal rules — the rule-playing model of the Empire.

Dan: Let’s talk about some geography, because I love the idea of geography. So many insurgencies are made because of a particular — and successful because of a particular landscape. I mean, if you look at the Arab conquests, they clearly were able to bring down two of the greatest empires on Earth because of their perfect evolution, if you like, their perfect ability to own that space — the Middle East environment, with their camels, their fast moving cavalry attacks through the Arabian Peninsula and beyond.

We’ve got Vietnam, of course. In every Hollywood film we’ve got jungles, we’ve got the young American boys just not able to deal with this climate and this environment, and then the more modern insurgencies. Again, we’ve got the heat and we’ve got the intensity of fighting in the Middle East and Afghanistan, often in built-up areas — combat in an urban environment.

Star Wars really exploits those, when you see the Empire getting bogged down in difficult places.

Janice: Right. In the Return of the Jedi, I think about how they were unable to cope with the forest, Moon, geography, this deep woodland. It was difficult for them time and time again, and they could turn that technological edge of the rebellion — the members of the resistance turned their technological edge of the Empire against itself, as these walkers found themselves unable to keep their footing, falling over, being vulnerable to very simple attacks.

So, yes, geography is a key part of this and I would imagine, as somebody who lives in the northerly part of Canada where winters are severe, that a place like Hoth, the ice planet in The Empire Strikes Back, would have also been a real problem if the Empire had to be pursuing that rebellion for a long time. As it was, they moved through very quickly, but we could just see how tough it was for the rebellion to exist in such a desolate climate of cold.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, that’s a good point, because we hear about these successful guerrilla movements, whether it’s the Viet Cong or elsewhere, and actually when you read more about them you see how close to a defeat they actually came and how the appalling sacrifice they made.

I mean, the Viet Cong didn’t enjoy leaving in tunnels under jungles or in the case of mountain guerrillas. I mean, guerrillas were on this occasion. Again, it’s very hard to exist in those places. They’re driven there through desperation. They’re not driven there because they just love fighting in appalling jungle conditions.

Janice: Right, that they have to give up everything and they might have already sacrificed everything, again, through the actions — those relentless and exceedingly awful bombing campaigns that drove them into these desperate moves.

As you say, they didn’t have a great desire to be living in those caves, under the ground or living in those holes that they dug out, but it turned the tide against what, for them, was an evil empire.

Dan: It’s interesting. It’s the classic, iconic American movie, and yet it’s actually the most — now, that I’m talking to you, this is the most anti-American movie ever!

Janice: In many ways, it surprises a lot of people, because they’re so ready to identify with Luke, and Leia, and Han — these American accents, fighting off against an evil empire that’s, well, in the case of the first movies, mostly speaking in British accents, so you can have the us-versus-them idea, as you say, from an American perspective.

Yet all the while, George Lucas clearly was thinking this is as much an allegory of the Vietnamese against the Americans, as it could be an American story against their oppressors.

Dan: Does that mean that — ; Is George Lucas trying to say that America, when it was in its rebellious phase, when it was rebellion against the evil British Empire: that was good; that was what we should have been doing and then, now, we’ve morphed into an empire ourselves. Was this going on in his thinking as a big picture?

Janice: I think it was going on in his thinking. There’s certainly the chapter that we have in there about rebellions, and this model of the people’s war really seemed to resonate with him. He liked how it drew on the American Revolution as an example of this, and then contrasted it much more closely for Star Wars: A New Hope with the Vietnamese experience.

Dan: Because in your book, Star Wars & History, you talk about the American Revolution, as well. I mean, for example, the ice planet Hoth is compared to Valley Forge, where in the winter of 1777–78 a very tough winter was endured by George Washington’s young American Army, but it was kind of the making — ; Although it was a very difficult experience, it was also the making of them, wasn’t it, because the unity, the training they received during that winter enabled them to go on and fight the British later.

Janice: Yes, that’s very much the experience of Valley Forge for the Americans and I would say, in the way that the movie shows us in The Empire Strikes Back, that the difficulties, their disasters and setbacks — although the Americans didn’t have the British storm in on Valley Forge and drive them out, it was still nevertheless pretty devastating, those same kind of experiences to harden, to refine, that edge carries on in the movies.

Dan: Now, Janice, we should talk about the Force. We should talk about the Force.

Janice: Yes.

Dan: What is the Force and what is it historically? What did George Lucas want us to think about when we are talking about the Force?

Janice: When we talked about creating a chapter on the Force, we wanted to make sure that we got some historical inspirations really right that he wanted, so he clearly drew us over to Asia. He wanted to draw on the different models that he saw for the Force as looking at — ;

A lot of people assumed it would simply be samurai and maybe some eastern warriors, but he had, again, a broader model of what he wanted to do, to talk about concepts that he saw in various civilisations. This time, he drew from Western European warrior monks, like the Templar Knights and the Knights Hospitaller, all the way through the Shaolin monks and looking at the Buddhist traditions, in particular.

This transnational model of warriors who devote themselves to pursuing a higher power and higher knowledge, I think, was the big part for him at the Force. Again, not one nation or one tradition, but many.

Dan: I suppose that Field Marshal Slim had a way of describing morale and he talked about the several levels of morale. One thing is the guy who’s got enough food in the tummy, and they’ve got boots that work, and they’ve got a personal weapon that works, but then, there is that upper level of morale, which is that strategic level, which is believing in the justice of the cause that you’re fighting in.

I guess, what the Force is some — ; the Stormtroopers haven’t got the Force, because they’re nine-to-fivers. They’re just behind their armoury and they’re just doing what they’re told, whereas is the idea that the Jedi’s and the rebels, as a whole, have a greater sense of mission and a sense of right on their side.

Janice: That really seems to be another of the points he’s made in the movies and we were able to draw on, that there is no sense beyond obedience to the Emperor and the requirements of authority that drove the Empire side, whereas the rebellion had its entire justification around two points: the return of the republic and that republican rule, but also the leadership of the Jedi and this idea that The Force as not just a power, but as a moral authority would help to drive their cause to victory.

Dan: Yeah, morale is one of those funny things and you get — some generals say it’s 9/10th of the battle, isn’t it — that belief that you can win, and yet the trouble is if you think about the First World War, and there were lots of boys there who thought there were going to win, who died quick deaths on the battle field of the Western Front, and so it’s a tricky one for historians, I think, isn’t it?

Janice: I think you’re right that certainly morale can be the be-all-and-end-all of our analysis, but in looking what’s going to keep you going for that long haul, again, you should go back to the First World War and say: well, as they realised they were going to be dug into these trenches and carry on, they had to have a sense of what made our cause was fighting for and our enemies worth killing.

And so, that split between the Allied Forces on one side and their opponents on the other, to say who is the good guy, who’s the bad guy, how are we going to talk about them, I think that comes into Star Wars with ‘you rebel scum’. It would be something that a soldier from the First World War and the Second World War could be saying: I can see how we would say that about the other guy.

Dan: I think there was a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, saying, “The morale is to the physical as three to one.” He was clearly a massive believer in the more abstract, the more mindful side of warfare, as well. But you’ve got to have some stuff and you’ve got to have decent equipment. Actually, the Rebel Alliance does have — ; It lacks the technology of the Empire, but it has pretty reliable equipment.

If you look at the Vietnam War, there is always some weapon, whether it’s the AK-47 or plastic explosives, there has to be some asymmetrical advantage for the rebels that they have to have.

Janice: Yeah, they seem to have a large number of these X-wing and Y-wing fighters in the original trilogy and they certainly have the man power, the people, the personnel to support these bases to be on the run, to have all of these ships. They have a big buy and we might say that, in some cases, simpler is better. They’re not on the cutting edge of technology in the Star Wars Galaxy.

They don’t have these shiny TIE fighters and this fully-integrated armour but, again, technology was proving kind of unreliable in those cases when, instead of the TIE fighters being able to knock Luke Skywalker out of the sky, The Force helps him. His little, reliable X-wing, with his little R2 droid helps safe the day.

Dan: Let’s think about that, because an R2 droid can fix an X-wing, right? Janice, this it brilliant, because if you just — ; especially if we look at the, we’ve been talking about the Nazis in World War II, they’ve got the Tiger tank — everyone talks about the Tiger tank.

It was a nightmare. It needed like a team of mechanics around it all the time, whereas the T-34 Soviet tank could be fixed by its own crew, basically while they were in action. Of course, that is Luke and his X-wing, right?

Janice: Precisely, that this ordinary, bog-standard military device is going to be much better than the fancy, over-the-top devices. Yeah, I like what you’re saying about the King Tiger tanks, because they do have a lot of people who, of course, would be all excited, “Yes, let’s get to this topic! I want to talk about this cool technology,” and say, “Uh-um, kind of unreliable. You need to look at the actual action in the field,” and the rebel alliance makes a great case for them to turn to something much more basic, but they made it work.

Dan: Why, do you think, we want rebels to win, given that, in the West, we’re the empire — we’re that demonic power: the USA, Britain, free market capitalism, representative of the democracy that stretched around the world. It’s been all going our way for three-four hundred years, so why do we obsess with rebels?

Janice: That’s a really good question, and I think it’s because the stories we tell ourselves is that we still are the rebels and the underdogs who’ve overthrown abusive authority. Nobody wants to say: wait a second, I’m on top and now I’m calling the shots, so if there is a problem, it’s probably something of my doing.

A long-running empire model doesn’t give you a lot of room to say: Huh! I’m not going to make a great change all of a sudden, unless I do it through slow and probably unsatisfying ways. You first have to, as an empire, accept your part of the problem, whereas the rebels can say: ah, they’re all the problem and I’m the solution.

Dan: I thought that’s a very good answer, as well. It’s exactly what it is.

There are examples in the 20th century of, effectively, the empire winning, whether it’s the British in Malaya after the Second World War. This is what’s so interesting about Iraq: that the Americans and elsewhere actually eventually worked out a way to defeat the rebels effectively, before withdrawing.

Despite that, there is an impression, I think, amongst I’m sure your students think that the Empire always loses. The rulers win always win. Now, do you think that’s partly because of Star Wars and partly because of recent historical examples?

Janice: There are so many ways we could be looking at this, but we can begin by saying that Star Wars has really shaped our ideas of how history works in our world, as well as in other galaxies far, far away, that people believe the stories, the myth and, to be honest, they want to believe in the happy ending that Star Wars promises, where a plucky band of rebels can always win against an evil, oppressive empire trying to stamp out individuality and freedom. So that’s big part of it.

Dan: We have a wide perception, don’t we, in the West, that the rebel — the guerrilla — is always going to win. Partly, that’s because of the recent history, but do you think cultural influences, like Star Wars, have played a part in creating that mindset?

Janice: I think that Star Wars has had really helped to cement the idea that the rebels will win. This is a mythology as much as a history that we like to buy into, that we are going to be those plucky rebels, that we are going to be the ones who turn the tide against the Empire, which is faceless and mechanistic, so we can look back and say: the fight against the Nazis is a fight against an evil empire and that Winston Churchill rallying the British in their resistance there — are they not like the resistance, the rebellion in Star Wars?

Or looking at the American Revolution, or drawing back even further into history, to look at a number of rebellions from Antiquity — I use the example of Boudicca’s Rebellion, leading the Iceni against the Roman oppressors. Again, a classic model that people say: that’s like us.

Dan: What other impacts, do you think, it might have had?

Janice: Well, I know this might sound a little bit odd, but I would also say that Star Wars really brought an idea of how the rule of women in war can be carried out. We’re used to seeing now, today, women on the frontlines in many cultures.

Recently, in the United States has allowed women to be part of every kind of combat unit going out there, so the doors are opening a lot more, but back in 1977, when Princess Leia first picked up that blaster and shot her way into the garbage chute, that was pretty unusual for our ideas of women in war.

Then, to find out that she is not just there to be rescued, but that she’s integral to the plots, and actions, and command of this rebellion, I think that was a step that moved women into the world of war in our modern understanding.

Dan: And, as you say — you mentioned Boudicca before, perhaps reconnecting women with a martial past. I mean, Boudicca was a battlefield leader, and they have found shieldmaidens from the Viking period from various other periods, so that’s interesting that Star Wars perhaps helped us to rediscover something that previous generations already knew.

Janice: That’s the point of Star Wars & History, as well as that every time we go back into history, we can find something that resonates with what’s going on in the Star Wars Galaxy.

Dan: [laughs] I just love that this is an area of serious academic discussion. I mean, you’re a total hero. Do you ever think this is absurd or do you think you are doing something — ; Because I love it.

Janice: I love a great deal, too, but I have to admit I had to be brave enough to say people would still take me seriously as a historian if I brought in these elements of popular culture. Star Wars has been a first love of my, going back well before I ever thought of being a historian, so it is bringing these two parts of my life together, to be able to talk about Star Wars so much.

I also have researched in a lot of other popular cultural topics, so I contributed to works on Harry Potter & History and I’m working on a piece for Game of Thrones with history.

Dan: Oh, wow! We need to have you back for that, because I’m very interested. I mean, because I think Game of Thrones is even more consciously historic, isn’t it? We’re talking about the War of the Roses period in the UK, and England, and things like that.

Janice: Definitely. There are a lot of clear historical parallels. George R.R. Martin, the creator of Game of Thrones, has admitted it, too, so it’s kind of like open day on all of this.

Dan: But do you know what, Janice? We’re not going to get — ; We cannot get side-tracked into Game of Thrones at the moment, because — ; Well, we just cannot, okay? But we’re going to come back and do that. Whenever you publish that book, let’s talk about that. That would be great.

What’s funny though, to me, about Star Wars, when we think about the conclusions or what it impacts that, is it usually empires do win, right? I mean, this is the funny thing about Star Wars is that good doesn’t always beat evil and empires often win, and this is why it has created a false mindset — unreasonable expectations amongst us now, as we try and craft our own history — forge our own history.

I think you’re right, that we’ve got a lot of mythology again that Star Wars gives us a sense that can be the dominant story, where it’s many more cases, as you say, we can look at the Roman Empire ruling over so many of these rebellions and resistances.

Zenobia and her failed rebellion against the Roman Empire is just one of dozens we could pull out, so to think that this is the dominant area of the history would really be doing us a disservice. You have to say this happened in history. Rebellions won, but more often empires, as you say, carried on, didn’t really notice much of it at all.

Dan: And also, I think, the interest in marrying of the impact of the Second World War, which is about the most open-and-shut case — well, sorry, the Second World War in Western Europe is about the most open-and-shut case of evil guys get beaten by good guys, although it’s more nuanced elsewhere, like on the Eastern Front.

Again, we have these today, in the West. We only want to fight wars if it’s against Hitler, so if the Star Wars Second World War mindset does make us unrealistic actors, doesn’t it?

Janice: It does, indeed, because you’re setting up an impossible set of demands, and we almost lost, we can say. World War II, there are a lot of case where it was very close before the entire Allied Force was able to turn things around. So to say: oh, we’ve got to wait till we’ve got those conditions to go to war, where we’ve got both a clear moral guidance, we’ve got the sense that we’re fighting not just an opponent but an evil empire, well, you might be pushing it a bit too late for your own history.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. When the body looks like the Emperor, you know who — ; You can — ; and when the Stormtroopers look like they do.

There’s a great British comedy thing, where it has the Stormtroopers relaxing in between shifts, and they look at each other and go, “Do you ever think we are the — ; Do you think we might be the bad guys?”

Janice: [laughs] Yes, yes, I know that one well, and to all of a sudden say to ourselves: Hey, maybe we’re ticking off the checklist of the Empire in Star Wars — and you know what happened to them, that would be pretty chilly.

Dan: Well, I must say the day that I learned about the Predator drones flying around parts of the world — we shouldn’t be too political there on this broadcast. We send Predator drones out to kill people around the world remotely, and I started thinking, “I hope we’re not the baddies.”

Janice: Yes! And when you think the Empire sending its little Scout drones out to the planet Hoth, not only to capture information but clearly to shoot and kill when they could, the parallels are upsettingly close.

Dan: Well, well. We’re now going upsettingly close to politics here, but I think the — ; Perhaps to finish could be the idea of Star Wars as a piece of history in its own right. Is it the most successful movie franchise of all time? It certainly will be after the next few weeks, I think, and therefore it’s worthy of studying it in its own — ; as a piece of cultural history out there with, dare I say, things like the Iliad and the Odyssey.

We know that George Lucas read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is this comparative book of all of these different myths. I mean, he was trying to create a myth for our time, wasn’t he?

Janice: Yes, he was, and I think that he came into this mindful of the way that the story could resonate for mythology, for history, for politics and culture, in general. He had no idea, when he started it, that it would be this widely successful, but I think he had an idea that he wanted to make the story widely available.

Dan: That is extraordinary ambition. That’s just what movies should be doing — it’s painting on the biggest canvases.

Listen, Janice, I think we’ve taken up enough of your time. That was so — and we may call on you again. We’ll certainly call on you to do Game of Thrones when that time comes — just let me know. Thank you very much for coming on the History Hit podcast.

How do people get in touch with you? How do they follow your work? You can get Star Wars & History at all good bookshops and online. Can people follow you on Twitter, and Facebook, and things? How do they do that?

Janice: Yes, I am on Twitter, so look for jliedl.ca or on other platforms, but I am available on Twitter and I post frequently. I am on Facebook and I have a blog, which has been pretty quiet this past term. I’ve been busy teaching and writing, but will be back on the blogging front soon, especially now that the Star Wars movie is under my belt. No spoilers on all of those platforms, though. I will be good about my Star Wars.

Dan: Well, thank you very much. We’ve had a conversation today that’s gone from Ancient — well Boudicca certainly, right the way up to Vietnam, Iraq, and even Syria today. And that’s my great passion.

I’m a generalist. I love talking about history in the biggest possible arch, so thank you for joining me on that, Janice, and I love the book and I love what you’re doing, bringing that historical context to popular culture. Thank you.

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