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PODCAST

Past Present Future

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. Take back your personal data

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All Episodes

59:36

American Elections: The Republican Convention

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/21

This week we check back in with Gary Gerstle to discuss what’s been happening in American politics after a tumultuous week.What does it say about Trump’s electoral strategy that he picked J.D. Vance as his running mate?How would the Republican party have coped if the assassin’s bullet hadn’t missed?Who might replace Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket and how?Plus, what fate lies in store for Bidenomics if Trump plasters his name all over it?Our free fortnightly newsletter is out now,

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54:42

The Great Political Fictions: Hamilton

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/18

Our series concludes with a musical: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wildly popular and increasingly controversialHamilton(2015).What does it get right and what does it get wrong about America’s founding fathers?How fair is it to judge a Broadway musical by the standards of academic history?And why does a product of the Obama era still resonate so powerfully in the age of Trump and Biden?The latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter - which accompanies the last three episodes in this Fictions series

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54:18

The Great Political Fictions: American Wife

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/14

The penultimate episode in our fictions series is about Curtis Sittenfeld’sAmerican Wife(2008), which re-imagines the life of First Lady Laura Bush.One of the great novels about the intimacy of power and the accidents of politics, it sticks to the historical record while radically retelling it.What does the standard version leave out about the Bush presidency?How does an ordinary life become an extraordinary one?And where is the line between fact and fiction?Sign up now to PPF+ to get all our bonus

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53:46

The Great Political Fictions: The Line of Beauty

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/11

Our political fictions series returns with Alan Hollinghurst’sThe Line of Beauty(2004), which is set between Thatcher’s two dominant general election victories of 1983 and 1987.A novel about the intersection between gay life and Tory life, high politics and low conduct, beauty and betrayal, it explores the price of power and the risks of liberation.It also contains perhaps the greatest of all fictional portrayals of a real-life prime minster: Thatcher dancing the night away.Sign up now to PPF+ to

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55:21

UK General Elections: 2024

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/06

To wrap up our series David and Robert attempt some instant history on the election result that’s just happened: in some ways predictable, in others utterly remarkable.What does such a big win for Labour on such a relatively small vote mean?What’s happening in Scotland?Where next for the Tories?And is the UK now an outlier in a world of increasing political turmoil, or is the turmoil just under the surface here too?Our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this series is out now, with fact,

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53:40

UK General Elections: 2019

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/04

For election day, David and Robert discuss the previous general election in December 2019, which saw Boris Johnson win a decisive victory under the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’.How did he (or Dominic Cummings) do it?Was Corbyn to blame for Labour’s defeat?And how the hell did the Tories get from that resounding victory to their current disarray in just 4½ years?To get our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this series, with fact, figures, clips and reflections on all these elections and more, just

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56:00

UK General Elections: 1997

Past Present Future ·

2024/07/03

In this extra episode for election week David talks to historian Robert Saunders about the last great Labour landslide of1997, when Tony Blair won the biggest majority in his party’s history (till now?).Why did the Tories get no credit for a strong economy?How did New Labour change political campaigning?Was this the election that did for the prospects of proportional representation?Plus – the Millennium Dome: totemic or tat?To hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign up now to

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59:32

UK General Elections: 1979

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/30

Today’s pivotal UK election is the one that brought Margaret Thatcher to Downing Street in 1979. David talks to historian Robert Saunders about how she did it and how it could have turned out very differently.What might have happened if the election had been called the previous year?Did Thatcherism already exist in 1979 or had it still to be invented?And how close did the Labour party come to permanent schism in the years following her victory?To hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of

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55:51

UK General Elections: 1945

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/27

In today’s episode on pivotal UK elections David talks to historian Robert Saunders about the first great Labour landslide of 1945 and how it changed Britain.Why did Churchill not get his expected reward for winning the war?How genuinely radical and popular was the Labour programme?What made the mild-mannered Attlee such an effective leader?And how did the Tories – and Churchill – manage to get themselves back in the game?To hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign up now to PPF+

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53:45

UK General Elections: 1906

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/23

The first episode in our new series with historian Robert Saunders on pivotal general elections is about the Tory disaster and Liberal triumph of 1906.David and Robert explore the reasons behind the worst result in modern Conservative party history – until now?How did the Liberals achieve their landslide?What made ‘Big Loaf, Little Loaf’ a winning election slogan?And who was Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the great forgotten prime minister?For our next bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign

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53:24

The Great Political Fictions: The Handmaid’s Tale

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/20

For the final episode in the current series, David discusses Margaret Atwood’s TheHandmaid’sTale(1985), her unforgettable dystopian vision of a future American patriarchy.Where is Gilead?When is Gilead?How did it happen?How can it be stopped?From puritanism and slavery to Iran and Romania, from demography and racism to Playboy and Scrabble, this novel takes the familiar and the known and makes them hauntingly and terrifyingly new.Coming next: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections, starting with the

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54:05

The Great Political Fictions: Midnight’s Children

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/16

In the penultimate episode of the current part of our Fictions series, David explores Salman Rushdie’s 1981 masterpiece Midnight’s Children, the great novel about the life and death of Indian democracy.How can one boy stand in for the whole of India?How can a nation as diverse as India ever have a single politics?And how is a jar of pickle the answer to these questions?Plus, how does Rushdie’s story read today, in the age of Modi?Next time: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s TaleComing next week on

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58:45

The Great Political Fictions: Atlas Shrugged

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/13

In this episode David discusses Ayn Rand’s insanely long and insanely influentialAtlasShrugged(1957), the bible of free-market entrepreneurialism and source book to this day for vicious anti-socialist polemics.Why is this novel so adored by Silicon Valley tech titans?How can something so bad have so much lasting power?And what did Rand have against her arch-villain Robert Oppenheimer?Next time: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s ChildrenComing soon on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General ElectionsSign up now

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53:55

The Great Political Fictions: Mother Courage and Her...

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/09

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 17thcentury.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 ShruggedComing next week on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General

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55:55

The Great Political Fictions: The Time Machine

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/06

H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) isn’t just a book about time travel.It’s also full of late-19thcentury 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 ChildrenComing soon on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General ElectionsTo receive our fortnightly newsletter just follow the link

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51:28

The Great Political Fictions: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Past Present Future ·

2024/06/02

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a story that it’s easy to know without really knowing it at all.This week’sepisodeexplores 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 Ideas Behind UK General ElectionsSign up now to PPF+ to get 2

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53:53

The Great Political Fictions: Phineas Redux

Past Present Future ·

2024/05/30

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 Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr

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50:32

The Great Political Fictions: Middlemarch (part 2)

Past Present Future ·

2024/05/26

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 now to PPF+ and enjoy ad-free

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52:03

The Great Political Fictions: Middlemarch (part 1)

Past Present Future ·

2024/05/23

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 series – on Email and VAR –

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53:22

The History of Bad Ideas: Mesmerism

Past Present Future ·

2024/05/19

For our lastepisodein 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 Ideasepisodes– on Email and VAR – sign up now to PPF+, where

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