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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.

history politics

All Episodes

46:01

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Ubu Roi w/Dominic...

Past Present Future ·

2025/04/15

Today’s Parisian revolution is a theatrical performance that produced a riot. David talks to theatre director Dominic Dromgoole about Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1896), which only ran for a couple of nights but left an indelible mark on the culture of the age and has resonated ever since. Why did a play effectively written by children provoke such a storm among the adults? What made it it blow the mind of W. B. Yeats who was in the audience? How can something so bad be so liberating?Next time:

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42:44

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Salon Des Refusés...

Past Present Future ·

2025/04/13

Today’s episode is the first of three this week with the theatre director and writer Dominic Dromgoole, exploring revolutionary events in the world of art and theatre, starting with the opening of the Salon des Refusés in Paris in May 1863. How did the Emperor Napoleon end up sponsoring such a counter-cultural event? Why did it provoke such public outrage and astonishment? And in what ways did Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe revolutionise what was possible in the creation and consumption of modern

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56:24

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Marx and the...

Past Present Future ·

2025/04/10

Today the first of four episodes about Parisian revolutions. We start with the definitive nineteenth-century revolutionary and his definitive revolution: David talks to historian Bruno Leipold about why Karl Marx thought the Paris Commune in 1871 was the model of a workers' uprising and provided a vision of the socialist future. How had the Communards reinvented democracy? Was this a social, an economic or a political revolution? And how did Marx reconcile himself to its bloody failure?Bruno

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63:38

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Free Speech

Past Present Future ·

2025/04/06

Today’s revolutionary idea is one with a long history, not all of it revolutionary: David talks to the historian Fara Dabhoiwala about the idea of free speech. When did free speech first get articulated as a fundamental right? How has that right been used and abused, from the eighteenth century to the present? And what changed in the history of the idea of free speech with the publication of J. S. Mill’s On Liberty in 1859?Fara Dabhoiwala’s What Is Free Speech? is available

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66:00

PPF Live Film Special: Network w/Helen Lewis

Past Present Future ·

2025/04/03

We take a brief break from revolutionary ideas for a special live episode of PPF recorded in front of an audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London. David talks to writer and journalist Helen Lewis about Network (1976), a film still best remembered for its catchphrase: ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Just how prophetic is that cry of rage in the age of Trump? What does the film say about the continuing power of television in the era of social media? And who or what does

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54:38

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Darwin w/Adam...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/30

David talks to geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about the book that fundamentally altered our understanding of just about everything: Darwin’s On The Origin of Species (1859). What made the idea of natural selection so different from the theories of evolution that preceded it? How did Darwin arrive at it? What changed when he published his theory and why is it, in so many ways, the most revolutionary idea of them all?Out tomorrow on PPF+ Darwin Part 2: Adam Rutherford explores how

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66:48

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Taiping...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/27

Today’s revolutionary ideas come from China: David talks to historian Julia Lovell about the Taiping Revolution, another massive mid-19th-century upheaval that nearly overturned the established order. How did Christianity inspire an uprising against the Qing dynasty? Was it a revolution or a civil war? What was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom? And where does this cataclysmic event fit into China’s 20th-century revolutionary history?Out now: a bonus episode on 1848 with Chris Clark looking at the

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53:30

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: 1848: The Radical...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/23

In our second of three episodes on the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 David and Chris Clark explore the forces demanding radical change. What was ‘the Social Question’ and who was asking it? Where did the violence that erupted in the summer of 1848 come from? What, if anything did it achieve? And who paid the price?Out tomorrow: a final bonus episode on 1848 looking at the counter-revolution: how did the ruling regimes of Europe fight back? To get this and a year’s worth of bonus

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56:55

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: 1848: The Liberal...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/20

In the first of three episodes about the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 David is joined by historian Chris Clark to explore the ideas behind this continental upheaval. We start with the ‘Liberal Revolution’: Who were the liberals and what had turned them into revolutionaries? How did the original French Revolution overshadow their hopes and fears? Were parliaments and constitutions capable of sustaining revolutionary fervour? And did the liberals of 1848 realise what they had

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61:36

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Bayesian...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/16

Today’s revolutionary idea is something a bit different: David talks to statistician David Spiegelhalter about how an eighteenth-century theory of probability emerged from relative obscurity in the twentieth century to reconfigure our understanding of the relationship between past, present and future. What was Thomas Bayes’s original idea about doing probability in reverse: from effect to cause? What happened when this way of thinking passed through the vortex of the French Revolution? How has it

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58:01

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Slave Uprising:...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/13

Today’s episode is about a very different revolution from any we’ve discussed so far: David talks to historian Hank Gonzalez about the Haitian Revolution, which for the first time in history saw a slave revolt result in an independent free state. How did the Haitian Revolution intersect with the American and French Revolutions that preceded it? Why were European powers unable to reverse it despite massive military intervention? What is its legacy for the state of Haiti today? Tickets are still

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59:25

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: French Revolution...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/09

For our third episode on the ideas behind the French Revolution, David talks to Richard Whatmore about the ubiquitous Thomas Paine, the Englishman who championed revolutionary politics around the world. How did Paine come to see France as the locus of all his revolutionary hopes? How were those hopes ultimately disappointed? And what happened to Paine’s vision of the Rights of Man?Out now on PPF+: a special bonus episode on King Donald The First. David explores the arguments being made in 2025 for

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54:35

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: French Revolution...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/06

For our second episode on the people and ideas behind the French Revolution David talks to historian and biographer Ruth Scurr about the man who came to embody the revolution in all its radicalism and all its terror: Maximilien Robespierre. Who was he and how did he rise so fast once the upheaval was underway? How did he harness the power of the Jacobin Club? How did he marshal the violence of the streets? What did he believe in? And what made him think it was possible to reconcile virtue with

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58:35

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: French Revolution...

Past Present Future ·

2025/03/02

In the first of three episodes about the people and ideas behind the French Revolution, David talks to Lucia Rubinelli about the man who helped kickstart it all: the Abbé Sieyès. How did an obscure cleric galvanise a nation? What did he mean by the Third Estate and why did he think it was everything? What went wrong with his idea of a new constitutional order for France? And what happened when Sieyès encountered Napoleon?Out now on PPF+: a special bonus episode on King Donald The First. David

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64:53

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: American...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/27

In the second of our two episodes about the American Revolution David talks to historian Eric Nelson about the ideas that shaped the US Constitution. Was the office of President a victory for the people who still wanted a king or for those who never wanted one again? What was old and what was new about the idea of the separation of powers? What really divided the Federalists and the Antifederalists? And how are these arguments still being played out in the early days of Trump 2.0? Out tomorrow: a

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61:02

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: American...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/23

Today it’s the first of two episodes about one of the most significant revolutions of all: the American Revolution. David talks to historian Eric Nelson about the ideas behind America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776. How did a fight with the British parliament become a repudiation of the British king? What turned royalists into republicans? What kind of republic did they think they were building? And whose consent was going to be needed to build it?Next time: American Revolution 2: The

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54:23

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Industrial...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/20

Today’s episode is about a revolution that started 250 years ago and is still going on (in the form of the digital revolution): the Industrial Revolution. David talks to economic historian Alexis Litvine about how new ways of making things changed human understanding of the world around us. Did the Industrial Revolution invent the idea of progress? Did it revolutionise the concept of nature? Did it upend the way we think about time? And what was the cost? Tickets are available for PPF Live at the

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57:03

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: English...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/16

In the second of our episodes with historian Clare Jackson on the English revolutions of the 17th century we discuss the one that usually gets called ‘Glorious’: the revolution of 1688. Was it a revolution or was it an invasion? What rights did parliament win and what powers did it acquire? Was this the beginning of the modern military state? And does the Glorious Revolution deserve its name?Out now: the latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter with guides to the most recent episodes,

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57:42

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: English...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/13

Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas is about the event that is sometimes – but not always – called the English Revolution: the Civil War of the 1640s and the short-lived republic that followed. David talks to historian Clare Jackson about whether this really was a revolution and about the thinking that inspired it. What was old, what was new, what was borrowed and what was left when it was all over – what happened to the dreams of a brave new world? Out tomorrow: the latest edition

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66:40

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Scientific...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/09

Today’s episode is about a revolution that took centuries to happen if it ever really happened at all: The Scientific Revolution. David talks to historian of science Simon Schaffer about what changed in human understanding – and what didn’t – in the age of Galileo and Newton. Was the new science a revolution of ideas or of practices? What did it mean for the hold of religious and political authority? Who or what were the driving forces behind it? And did the people who lived through it realise what

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