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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

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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57:07

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Reformation...

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/06

Today’s revolutionary thinker is Martin Luther, the man who upended the religious, political and intellectual life of Europe, maybe without entirely meaning to. David talks to historian Alec Ryrie about how a German monk took on the entire authority of the Catholic Church and survived the experience. What did he hope to achieve? Who were his principal backers? How did he reimagine the idea of human freedom? And where is his influence most widely felt today?Out tomorrow on PPF+ a new bonus episode:

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60:47

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Humanism

Past Present Future ·

2025/02/02

Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas is about a medieval movement that used the ancient past to rethink and reimagine the present and the future. David talks to historian Eric Nelson about humanism and its enormous impact on the history of ideas. How did humanism emerge out of catastrophe? What did it do to the hold of Church and Empire on the medieval mind? Was humanist politics really revolutionary politics? And where is the ‘human’ in humanism?As part of our Great Political

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67:04

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Magna Carta

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/30

Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas is about a medieval document that is sometimes thought to contain a ground-breaking promise of basic political rights. David talks to historian Nick Vincent about Magna Carta (1215) and what it did and didn’t actually say. Why did the warring parties agree to it? Was it a constitutional charter or a peace treaty? What happened when its terms were broken? And how did it come to acquire the totemic significance it has today? Sign up now to get our

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63:07

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Islam

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/26

Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas explores the world-altering impact of Islam from the seventh century onwards. David talks to the leading Islamic scholar Tim Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad) about what changed – and what didn’t – with the appearance of Islamic law, Islamic culture and Islamic ideas of community. Was Islam really egalitarian? How could a universalist religion encompass so much variety? Why did it spread so fast? And what caused it to split so soon?Come see PPF

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57:44

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Christianity...

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/23

Today’s episode in our series on revolutionary ideas is a conversation covering two millennia with the historian Tom Holland exploring the never-ending upending of human understanding brought about by Christianity. How can weakness be the ultimate strength? How can political order be built out of the glorification of suffering? How can a universal religion create so much hierarchical division? And in a Christian world, is it ever possible to escape the charge of hypocrisy? Out now on PPF+: the

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54:30

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Socrates w/Agnes...

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/19

To begin our history of revolutionary ideas in earnest, David talks to the philosopher Agnes Callard about Socrates, the philosopher who changed – and can still change – everything. Just what is so radical about the Socratic method? How does it open up new ways of thinking about the meaning of life? Can anyone do it? And where does it leave 2000+ years of intervening philosophy?Out tomorrow on PPF+: the second part of David’s conversation with Agnes Callard about Socrates, exploring politics, AI,

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55:44

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: What Makes a...

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/16

To kick off our new series on revolutionary ideas past, present and future David talks to two regular PPF contributors – the philosopher Lea Ypi and the scientist Adam Rutherford – about what makes an idea truly revolutionary. Do revolutionary ideas change the world? Can the world be changed without them? Can bad ideas ever be revolutionary ideas? And where should we be looking for revolutionary ideas today? Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter to get more ideas, clips, reading suggestions and

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58:18

The Great Political Films: The Zone of Interest

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/12

The final episode in our great political films series explores Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023), his haunting take on the home life of the man who ran Auschwitz. This is a film like nothing else. It is not about the banality of evil or the proximity of innocence to horror. Instead it takes us inside a nightmare world from which there is no escape: the grimmest fairy story of them all.Out now: a new bonus episodes on PPF+ exploring the joys of Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop, not just

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61:25

The Great Political Films: Zero Dark Thirty

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/09

The penultimate episode in our great political films series explores Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012), her controversial take on the War on Terror. Tracking the CIA’s years-long pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, it’s part spy procedural, part story of a female outsider in a man’s world, and part a complex disquisition on political violence. Where does bureaucracy end and killing begin? Can torture ever be justified? And whose judgment is ultimately the one that counts?Out now: a new bonus

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56:27

The Great Political Films: The Social Network

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/05

The second David Fincher film in our series (after Fight Club) is The Social Network (2010), the Aaron Sorkin-scripted take on how Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and the price paid by everyone else. A tale of power and privilege, innocence and cynicism, it is also about how exploitation can be sold as exclusivity. What is left when we have given away our control over who we are in order to decide who counts as a friend?Out later this week: a new bonus episodes on PPF+ exploring the joys of

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54:49

The Great Political Films: There Will Be Blood

Past Present Future ·

2025/01/02

Our great political films series reaches the twenty-first century with Paul Thomas Anderson’s unforgettable There Will Be Blood (2007), starring Daniel Day-Lewis as oilman Daniel Plainview in one of the all-time great screen performances. Based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! (1927), the movie swaps out Marx for Nietzsche and tells a story of money vs religion and family vs both. What, in the end, is the force that cannot be overcome? Out now: two bonus episodes on PPF+ to accompany this series:

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58:41

The Great Political Films: Fight Club w/ Helen Lewis

Past Present Future ·

2024/12/29

David talks to writer and journalist Helen Lewis about David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), the film that launched a thousand memes. Does this tale of thwarted masculinity and corporate malfeasance code left or code right? Who, in the end, is Tyler Durden: Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk or Andrew Tate? Is Fight Club a relic of the pre-digital age or a prophetic vision of what was coming? And … Meat Loaf?!Out now: two new bonus episodes on PPF+ to accompany this series: Shoah part one and

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51:21

The Great Political Films: Do The Right Thing

Past Present Future ·

2024/12/26

Our political films season has reached the late 1980s with Do The Right Thing (1989), Spike Lee’s searing take on racial tension on a Brooklyn block on a boiling hot summer’s day. How does a fight over pizza turn into a full-blown riot? With everyone feeling exploited, who is really to blame? And where do Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X – not to mention Jesse Jackson Jr. – fit in? Out now: two new bonus episodes on PPF+ to accompany this series: Shoah part one and Shoah part two, exploring

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54:52

The Great Political Films: Kagemusha

Past Present Future ·

2024/12/22

Today’s great political film is Akira Kurosawa’s epic of war and deception Kagemusha (1980). Set in late sixteenth-century Japan it tells the story of a thief tasked with impersonating a warlord. Can physical resemblance translate into political authority? How far does the conspiracy need to go? And who in the end is the real criminal?Out now: two new bonus episodes on PPF+ to accompany this series: Shoah part one and Shoah part two, exploring Claude Lanzmann’s path-breaking, harrowing,

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54:09

The Great Political Films: Jeanne Dielman

Past Present Future ·

2024/12/19

Today’s great political film is Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), voted the greatest film of all time in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll. A classic of feminist cinema it is also a film about the meaning of time and the illusions of choice. How can a movie which shows a woman peeling potatoes in real time have you on the edge of your seat? If the personal is the political, what do three days in the life of a Belgian housewife tell us about the true nature of

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257 results

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