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

Mar 31, 2024 · 56 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: The Ancients - Socrates, Seneca & Jesus
In episode two of our new series David and Lea explore some ancient ideas of freedom and ask what they mean today. What can Socrates teach us about the nature of free inquiry and the pitfalls of democratic freedom? Is Stoicism a guide to emancipation from desire or an exercise in selfishness? And how did Christianity upend the notion of freedom by annexing it to ideas of salvation and love? A conversation about dissent, self-knowledge and faith. Sign up now for P
Mar 28, 2024 · 58 min
The History of Freedom w/Lea Ypi: Why Does It Matter?
In the first episode of our new series about the history of freedom, David and Lea discuss what the idea means to them and why it matters so much. What did freedom mean to Lea growing up in communist Albania? Is it possible to know true freedom without also having experienced oppression? And how is being free different from being lucky? Subscribe now to PPF+ to get bonus episodes and ad-free listening for this and all future series. Just go to <a href="http://www.ppfi
Mar 27, 2024 · 3 min
Introducing PPF+
Sign up now for bonus episodes and ad-free listening – and help support the podcast.  <a href="http://www.ppfideas.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.ppfideas.com</a> <hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.
Mar 24, 2024 · 59 min
American Elections: 2008
For our final episode in this series, David and Gary discuss the election of 2008, which saw Barack Obama’s extraordinary ascent to the presidency. How did he outthink and outmanoeuvre Hilary Clinton? What role did the financial crisis play in his path to the White House? And was it really the vice-presidential candidates in this election who pointed the way to America’s political future? To sign up for our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this and future seri
Mar 21, 2024 · 51 min
American Elections: 1980
Our series on the Ideas Behind American Elections has reached 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan. David and Gary discuss whether Jimmy Carter was always doomed, what made Reaganomics different and how Reagan succeeded in being an optimist and a scaremonger at the same time. Did this election really inaugurate a new era in American politics – and if so, are we still living in it? To sign up for our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this and future series, just cl
Mar 17, 2024 · 50 min
American Elections: 1936
The election of 1936 saw FDR re-elected in a landslide. It was also an election in which fundamental questions about the future direction of America were at stake. David and Gary discuss what made it a turning point for American democracy and ultimately for the wider world. Could the power of the Supreme Court be tamed? What was the true nature of economic freedom? And what threatened the New Deal - dissent at home or looming dangers abroad? To sign up for o
Mar 14, 2024 · 48 min
American Elections: 1912
We’ve reached the twentieth century and today’s episode is about the decisive election of 1912. David and Gary discuss the year when the Republicans split, the Democrats recaptured the White House after an absence of twenty years, and American politics shifted decisively towards progressivism. Who were the real progressives? What was Theodore Roosevelt trying to achieve in setting up a new party? How did Woodrow Wilson mange to win the nomination and th
Mar 10, 2024 · 54 min
American Elections: 1896
This episode in our series on the Ideas Behind American Elections looks at 1896, when a single speech nearly upended American politics. The speech was William Jennings Bryan’s ‘Cross of Gold’ address at the Democratic Party convention, which won him the nomination. How did a 36-year old outsider from Nebraska get so close to reaching the White House? What made the issue of silver coinage the driving force behind American populism? And why was 1896 the template for a new ki
Mar 7, 2024 · 1 hr
American Elections: 1860
In the third episode in our series on the Ideas Behind American Elections David and Gary talk about what was maybe the most significant election of all: 1860, when Lincoln became president and the country careened into civil war. How did the newly formed Republican Party break the stranglehold of the established parties? Why could the South neither unite against it nor accept its victory? What enabled Lincoln to wrestle the Republican nomination at the party's convention in Chi
Mar 3, 2024 · 53 min
American Elections: 1828
For the second episode in our new series on the Ideas Behind American Elections, David and Gary discuss 1828: the first great populist election, which saw the arrival of Andrew Jackson and a new style of politics in the White House. What made Jackson different from his predecessors? How did this election reinvent the American party system? And why were Jackson's arguments with Vice-President John Calhoun about economic tariffs so toxic that they brought the country close to civ
Feb 29, 2024 · 57 min
American Elections: 1800
In the first episode of our new series on the Ideas Behind American Elections, David and historian Gary Gerstle explore the presidential contest of 1800: scurrilous, complicated, game changing. How did it help create the American party system? Was it really democratic? What would have happened if Aaron Burr had won? Plus, just how accurate is the depiction of the election in Hamilton the musical? PLUS sign up now for the new PPF newsletter. A free, fort
Feb 25, 2024 · 45 min
Q & A: Shakespeare, Gulliver and Trump
In an extra episode this week David answers your questions about the most recent series of the History of Ideas - in particular about the political lessons of Gulliver’s Travels, for its own time and for our own. Plus, how is Trump like - and not like - Coriolanus, and where are the female authors for this series? (A: they’re coming!) Starting in our regular slot next week, PPF moves to two episodes a week as we launch our new series on the Ideas Behind American Elections with
Feb 22, 2024 · 56 min
The Great Political Fictions: Fathers and Sons
This week’s Great Political Fiction is Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862), the definitive novel about the politics – and emotions – of intergenerational conflict. How did Turgenev manage to write a wistful novel about nihilism? What made Russian politics in the early 1860s so chock-full of frustration? Why did Turgenev’s book infuriate his contemporaries – including Dostoyevsky? More from the LRB:<a href="https://bit.ly/4bGkPcN" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">
Feb 15, 2024 · 57 min
The Great Political Fictions: Mary Stuart
This week’s Great Political Fiction is Friedrich Schiller’s monumental play Mary Stuart (1800), which lays bare the impossible choices faced by two queens – Elizabeth I of England and Mary Queen of Scots – in a world of men. Schiller imagines a meeting between them that never took place and unpicks its fearsome consequences. Why does it do such damage to them both? How does the powerless Mary maintain her hold over the imperious Elizabeth? Who suffers most in the end and w
Feb 8, 2024 · 57 min
The Great Political Fictions: Gulliver’s Travels
This week’s episode on the great political fictions is about Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – part adventure story, part satire of early-eighteenth-century party politics, but above all a coruscating reflection on the failures of human perspective and self-knowledge. Why do we find it so hard to see ourselves for who we really are? What makes us so vulnerable to mindless feuds and wild conspiracy theories? And what could we learn from the talking
Feb 1, 2024 · 1 hr
The Great Political Fictions: Coriolanus
In the first episode of our new series on the great political fictions, David talks about Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (1608-9), the last of his tragedies and perhaps his most politically contentious play. Why has Coriolanus been subject to so many wildly different political interpretations? Is pride really the tragic flaw of the military monster at its heart? What does it say about the struggle between elite power and popular resistance and about the limits of political argument?<
Jan 25, 2024 · 1 hr
The End of Enlightenment
This week David talks to Richard Whatmore and Lea Ypi about what caused the loss of faith in the idea of Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century and the parallels with our loss of faith today. Why did hopes for a better, more rational world start to seem like wishful thinking? How was Britain implicated in the demise of Enlightenment ideals? And what might have happened if there had been no French Revolution? Richard Whatmore’s <a href="https://bit.ly/48xYv
Jan 18, 2024 · 50 min
Rory Stewart: What Does it Mean to be a 21st-Century Tory?
This week David talks to Rory Stewart about his life in politics and the history of the ideas behind his political philosophy. What does it mean to be a Tory in the twenty-first century? When and how did the Conservative party get taken over by Whigs? Where – if anywhere – can independents find a home in contemporary British democracy? A conversation about the many different forces that shape our politics, from Gulliver’s Travels to Liz Truss.  <a href="http
Jan 11, 2024 · 1 hr 1 min
The End of the UK?
This week David talks to the political scientist Mike Kenny about the possible fate of the United Kingdom. What makes the UK such an unusual political arrangement? How has it managed to hold together through war, economic decline, Brexit, Covid? What still threatens to break it apart? Mike Kenny’s new book is <a href="https://bit.ly/48Oxnwm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fractured Union: Politics, Sovereignty and the Fight to Save the UK</a> <hr><
Jan 5, 2024 · 54 min
History of Ideas 12: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Episode 12 in our series on the great essays is about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘The Case for Reparations’, published in the Atlantic in 2014. Black American life has been marked by injustice from the beginning: this essay explores what can – and what can’t – be done to remedy it, from slavery to the housing market, from Mississippi to Chicago. Plus, what has this story got to do with the origins of the state of Israel? Read the original essay <a href="https://bit.ly/49LEhnC" rel