Past Present Future

David Runciman

Past Present Future is a bi-weekly History of Ideas podcast with David Runciman, host and creator of Talking Politics, exploring the history of ideas from politics to philosophy, culture to technology. David talks to historians, novelists, scientists and many others about where the most interesting ideas come from, what they mean, and why they matter.

Ideas from the past, questions about the present, shaping the future.

New episodes every Wednesday and Sunday.

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328 episodes
Updated Sunday

Episodes328

Newest first

Jun 9, 2024 · 56 min
The Great Political Fictions: Mother Courage and Her Children
Bertolt Brecht’s classic anti-war play was written in 1939 at the start of one terrible European war but set in the time of another: the Thirty Years’ War of the 17th century. How did Brecht think a three-hundred-year gap could help us to understand our own capacity for violence and cruelty? Why did he make Mother Courage such an unlovable character? Why do we feel for her plight anyway? And what can we do about it? Next time: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged<b
Jun 6, 2024 · 58 min
The Great Political Fictions: The Time Machine
H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) isn’t just a book about time travel. It’s also full of late-19th century fear and paranoia about what evolution and progress might do to human beings in the long run. Why will the class struggle turn into savagery and human sacrifice? Who will end up on top? And how will the world ultimately end? Next time: Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children Coming soon on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections
Jun 2, 2024 · 53 min
The Great Political Fictions: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a story that it’s easy to know without really knowing it at all. This week’s episode explores all the ways that Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale confounds our expectations about good and evil. What does Dr Jekyll really want? What are all the men in the book trying to hide? And what has any of this got to do with Q-Anon and Hillary Clinton? Next time: H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine. Coming next month on PPF: The Ide
May 30, 2024 · 56 min
The Great Political Fictions: Phineas Redux
This week's great political novel is Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux (1874), his lightly and luridly fictionalised account of parliamentary polarisation in the age of Gladstone and Disraeli. A tale of political and personal melodrama, it explores what happens when political parties steal each other’s clothes and politicians find themselves hung out to dry by their colleagues. A story of integrity and hypocrisy and how hard it is to tell them apart. Next time: Robert Louis
May 26, 2024 · 53 min
The Great Political Fictions: Middlemarch (part 2)
This second episode about George Eliot’s masterpiece explores questions of politics and religion, reputation and deception, truth and public opinion. What is the relationship between personal power and faith in a higher power? Is it ever possible to escape from the gossip of your friends once it turns against you? Who can rescue the ambitious when their ambitions are their undoing? To get two bonus episodes from our recent Bad Ideas series – on Email and VAR – sign up
May 23, 2024 · 54 min
The Great Political Fictions: Middlemarch (part 1)
Our series on the great political novels and plays resumes with George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872), which has so much going on that it needs two episodes to unpack it. In this episode David discusses the significance of the book being set in 1829-32 and the reasons why Nietzsche was so wrong to characterise it as a moralistic tale. Plus he explains why a book about personal relationships is also a deeply political novel. To get two bonus episodes from our recent Bad Ideas s
May 19, 2024 · 55 min
The History of Bad Ideas: Mesmerism
For our last episode in this series David is joined by Helen Lewis to discuss Mesmerism – aka animal magnetism – an eighteenth-century method of hypnosis for which great medical benefits were claimed. Was its originator, Franz Mesmer, a charlatan or a healer? Was his movement science or religion or something in between? And what can it tell us about twenty-first century phenomena from online social contagion to hypnotherapy?  To get two bonus Bad Ideas&
May 16, 2024 · 51 min
The History of Bad Ideas: The Death of the Author
For our penultimate episode in this series David talks to Kathleen Stock about Roland Barthes’s idea of the Death of the Author (1967). Once very fashionable, the notion that readers not writers are the arbiters of what a text means has had a long and sometimes painful afterlife. As well as exploring its curious appeal and its persistent blindspots, Kathleen discusses her personal experience of how it can go wrong. Two bonus Bad Ideas episodes for PPF+ subscribers – on Ema
May 12, 2024 · 56 min
The History of Bad Ideas: Anti-Suffragettes
In this episode of our series on the lingering hold of bad ideas David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about the arguments made at the turn of the last century against giving the vote to women. Why were so many women against female enfranchisement? What did attitudes to women in politics reveal about the failings of men? And where can the echoes of these arguments still be heard today? Helen Lewis’s Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights i
May 9, 2024 · 49 min
The History of Bad Ideas: Taxonomy
For the latest episode in our series about the hold of bad ideas, we welcome back the geneticist Adam Rutherford to talk about Linnaean taxonomy, a seemingly innocuous scheme of classification that has had deeply pernicious consequences. From scientific racism to social stratification to search engine optimisation, taxonomy gets everywhere. Can we escape its grip? Sign up now to PPF+ to get ad-free listening and bonus episodes to accompany every series. Coming soon: two bo
May 5, 2024 · 52 min
The History of Bad Ideas: Antisemitism
Today’s bad idea is one with a very long history: David talks to the historian Christopher Clark about antisemitism and the reasons for its endless recurrence. What has made discrimination against the Jews different from other kinds of violent prejudice over the course of European history? How did the ‘Jewish Question’ become the battleground of German politics? Why do so many Christians have a love-hate relationship with Judaism? And where does the state of
May 2, 2024 · 52 min
The History of Bad Ideas: Facebook Friends
In today’s episode about seemingly good ideas gone badly wrong David talks to the philosopher and journalist Kathleen Stock about Facebook Friends, something that was meant to make us happier and better connected but really didn’t. How did online friendship become so performative? Does its failings say more about Facebook and its business models or does it say more about us? And why are academics so susceptible to the madness of social media?For ad-free listening and bon
Apr 28, 2024 · 47 min
The History of Bad Ideas: The Gold Standard
In the second episode in our series on bad ideas David talks to the political economist Helen Thompson about the gold standard, which was meant to anchor the world economy until it all fell apart a hundred years ago. Why does gold so often appear like a stable basis for money in an unstable world – and why not silver? What made the gold standard a source of instability instead?  How can money work if it has no material basis? And is quantitative easing a bad
Apr 25, 2024 · 57 min
The History of Bad Ideas: Eugenics
For the first episode in our new series about the hold of bad ideas David talks to the geneticist and science broadcaster Adam Rutherford about eugenics: from its origins in the 19th century through its heyday in the 20th century to its continuing legacy today. Is eugenics bad science, bad morality, bad politics – or all three? What are the fears that keep drawing people back to trying to control the consequences of human reproduction? And is a new age of consumerist
Apr 21, 2024 · 58 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: Liberation Movements
In our final episode David and Lea discuss liberation movements, from post-colonial liberation to women’s liberation, gay liberation and animal liberation. What, if anything, do these movements have in common? Is liberation about equality or is it about difference? And who needs liberating next – children? You can hear our bonus episodes for this series by signing up to PPF+ <a href="http://www.ppfideas.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.ppfideas
Apr 18, 2024 · 53 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: Existentialism and Psychoanalysis
In the penultimate episode in this series David and Lea discuss two twentieth-century philosophies of freedom and the human psyche. What can existentialism teach us about the nature of free choice under conditions of despair? Is there any escape from bad faith? And what can individuals – or even entire societies – learn about their freedom from being put on the couch? Sign up to PPF+ to get two bonus episodes to accompany this and all future series along wit
Apr 14, 2024 · 52 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: Anarchism and Nihilism
In our series about different ideas of freedom David and Lea have reached anarchism and nihilism. What is the positive vision of human freedom behind the anarchist rejection of the established order? What can nineteenth-century anarchists teach us about freedom in the twenty-first century? And if nihilists are against everything, what are they for? Sign up to PPF+ to get ad-free listening and two bonus episodes a month – just go to <a href="http://ppfid
Apr 11, 2024 · 52 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: What is the Free Market?
In the latest episode of our series about different ideas of freedom David and Lea explore what makes the free market free – and where it fails. How does buying and selling stuff advance human freedom? What does the free market free us from? And is it really possible to be free in a world dominated by credit and debt?  Sign up now for PPF+ to get bonus episodes and ad-free listening <a href="http://www.ppfideas.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" targe
Apr 7, 2024 · 56 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: Kant, Enlightenment and Peace
In this episode in our series about ideas of freedom David and Lea explore Immanuel Kant’s vision of rational freedom and perpetual peace. Why was Kant so sure that human reason would produce enlightened progress? Was he right? What are the obstacles likely to derail the advance of peace, then and now? How well do his arguments about free speech and free expression hold up in the age of the internet? Sign up now for PPF+ to get bonus episodes
Apr 4, 2024 · 52 min
The History of Freedom w/ Lea Ypi: Machiavelli and Political Liberty
 History of Freedom w/ Lea Ypi: Machiavelli and Political LibertyFor the third episode in our series about ideas of freedom David and Lea discuss Machiavelli, republicanism and what it means to live in a free state. What are the institutions that can protect people from domination and exploitation? How can political elites be held to account? Where are human beings most likely to find themselves at the mercy of others – and what can be done to he