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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

60:08

Films of Ideas extra: The Designated Mourner

Past Present Future ·

2026/01/04

An extra episode to accompany our Films of Ideas series: David explores The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn, the writer and co-star of My Dinner with Andre. How did a play first performed in 1996 turn into a prophetic text for our times? How was it shaped by Shawn’s experiences in Central America and his view of Reagan’s America? What makes it one of the greatest of all contemporary political fictions?Next time – Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Home Rule for Ireland! Learn more about your ad

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64:22

Films of Ideas: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/31

Today it’s the last in our series of live episodes recorded at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to film director and campaigner Beeban Kidron about Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), a much-loved film that’s also chock full of interesting ideas. Is memory the same as identity? Are all relationships founded on manipulation? What happens when we try to curate our mental distress? How should we resist the tech panacea of a painless existence? Who gets to choose

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59:29

Films of Ideas: Wittgenstein w/Nikhil Krishnan

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/28

The fourth episode in our season of live recordings from the Regent Street Cinema is about another film that explores the relationship between biography and philosophy: Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein (1993), which tells the story of an extraordinary life in a way that is both light and profound. David talks to writer and philosopher Nikhil Krishnan about Ludwig Wittengenstein’s ideas of war, science, truth, freedom, sexuality, language, loyalty and communism and how they are portrayed on screen. Does

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61:55

Films of Ideas: Rosa Luxemburg w/Lea Ypi

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/24

Today’s episode in our season of live recordings from the Regent Street Cinema looks at the biopic of a revolutionary: Margaretha von Trotta’s Rosa Luxemburg (1986), which explores the deeply unstable relationship between the personal and the political. David talks to writer and philosopher Lea Ypi (Free, Indignity) about where biography ends and philosophy begins and whether revolutionary politics requires the leading of a revolutionary life. What was Rosa Luxemburg’s true cause? Who or what

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66:41

Films of Ideas: My Dinner with Andre w/Lee Hall

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/21

The second episode in our live series from the Regent Street Cinema explores Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre (1981), in which two men discuss the meaning of theatre, capitalism, love, science, faith and freedom over a meal. David talks to playwright and screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, Rocketman) about how a great film can be made out of a single conversation. Who was the real Andre? How scripted was the dialogue? Who won the argument? And why has this film had such an extraordinary

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59:17

Films of Ideas: Rope w/Nicci Gerrard & Sean French

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/17

Today it’s the first in our series of live episodes recorded at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the crime writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (aka Nicci French) about Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), based on Patrick Hamilton’s play of the same name, itself based on the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb. What is the true subject of this film: murder, sex, morality or something else? Why is James Stewart so hopelessly miscast? And how does all this connect to Nietzsche?If you

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65:07

Politics on Trial: Nelson Mandela vs Apartheid

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/14

Today’s episode explores the trials of Nelson Mandela, variously charged by South Africa’s apartheid state with treason, incitement, illegal foreign travel, sabotage and conspiracy across a decade that saw him more often in court than out. How did Mandela defend himself? What changed from his first trial to his last? Could any justice be found in a system of blatant oppression? And what happens when the line between lawyer, defendant and prisoner becomes impossibly blurred?The final film in our

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65:06

Politics on Trial: Eichmann in Jerusalem

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/10

Today’s episode is about a momentous trial and the incendiary book that followed: the trial was of Adolf Eichmann, convicted by an Israeli court in 1961 of orchestrating the Holocaust, and the book was Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), which questioned the grounds on which he was prosecuted. What did Arendt mean by ‘the banality of evil’? Why was she convinced that the case against Eichmann was badly misjudged? Was the trial really intended to serve as a history lesson? And if it was,

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58:56

Politics on Trial: Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/07

Today we return to our series about epoch-making trials with the case of the book they tried and failed to ban. In 1960 Penguin Books was prosecuted at the Old Bailey under the new Obscene Publications Act (1959) over its plans to produce a cheap, unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. How did the prosecution try to persuade the jury that the book was a menace to public morals? Who were the expert witnesses called in its defence? What were the decisive arguments? And why

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60:44

Ian McEwan on the Present as Future Past

Past Present Future ·

2025/12/03

David talks to novelist Ian McEwan, who was our first ever guest on PPF, about how the future will view our present once the disasters we are brewing come to pass. How might humanity scrape through the rest of the century? Will future generations see us as intellectually vibrant or essentially trivial? If we turn out to be unknowable to those who follow us, does that mean we are unknowable to ourselves? A wide-ranging conversation about how past, present and future co-exist in time.Ian McEwan’s

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63:39

Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Thatcher@100 – Her...

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/30

Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian Robert Saunders about the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher. What is the meaning of Thatcherism in the twenty-first century? Why is she still such a polarising figure? Was she a distinctively British political phenomenon? Which politicians can plausibly claim to be channelling her example today? If you are looking for Christmas presents, how about a gift subscription to PPF+? You can choose between 6- and 12-months

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69:28

Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Thatcher@100 – Her Life

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/26

Today’s episode in our occasional series about momentous political anniversaries with historian Robert Saunders looks at the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher one hundred years on from her birth. What made Thatcher such a distinctive politician? What did she believe in before she became prime minister? How did her time is power alter her political outlook? And did she succumb to her own myth in the end?Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s conversation with Henry Gee about the rise and fall

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54:22

The Rise and Fall of Homo Sapiens

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/23

Today’s episode explores some very big picture history: David talks to palaeontologist and science writer Henry Gee about the story of the human species from origin to peak to inevitable decline. When and how did Homo sapiens see off the competition from its rivals in the human and animal world? Why did that point mark the start of an inexorable drift towards extinction? In what ways are our strengths as a species also our fatal weaknesses? And how near are we to the end?Part two of this

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58:54

Trump-like Leadership in German History w/Chris...

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/19

Part two of David’s conversation with historian Chris Clark asks whether the best historical insights into Trump-like leadership come from comparison with kings or commoners, democrats or dictators. Does Trump’s leadership style share much if anything with an epoch-making politician like Bismarck? Should Trump’s public persona be understood as standing outside the norm of presidential politics or as quintessentially American? And what can we learn from a close reading of his magnum opus, The Art of

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51:53

Trump-like Leadership in German History w/Chris...

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/16

Today’s episode is the first of a two-part conversation with historian Chris Clark exploring how German history might help us understand Trump-like leadership, but not through looking at the Nazi period. Instead, David and Chris explore the character and leadership style of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a monarch with many Trumpian qualities. Was Wilhelm a populist or an elitist? Did he know what he was doing and what he was saying? Or was he out of his depth? Plus, how did his maverick and mercurial behaviour

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51:50

Politics on Trial: France on Trial Part 2 – Vichy vs...

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/12

Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian Julian Jackson about the case of Marshal Pétain and the crimes of the Vichy regime. Did Pétain really play a ‘double game’ in which he tried to deceive the Nazis? How then to explain the vicious antisemitism of the Vichy regime? Why did the fate of France’s Jews not get more attention at Pétain’s trial? And how does the case of Pétain and the question of Vichy still resonate in French politics today? Julian Jackson’s France

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65:34

Politics on Trial: France on Trial – Pétain vs De Gaulle

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/09

Today’s episode is the first of two on the extraordinary treason trial of Marshal Pétain in the summer of 1945 that ended up putting wartime France in the dock. David talks to historian of modern France Julian Jackson about how Pétain found himself so quickly charged with treason and who was judging him. What was the essence of Pétain’s crime? Conspiracy? Surrender? Collaboration? Complicity in genocide? And what on earth was his defence?Julian Jackson’s France on Trial: The Case of Marshal

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55:01

Politics on Trial: The Moscow Show Trials

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/05

Today’s episode is the first of two exploring the origins, conduct and legacy of the Moscow Show Trials that Stalin staged from 1936-38. David talks to historian of Russia Edward Acton about what motivated these grotesque spectacles, how the defendants were chosen, how their confessions were extracted, why the rhetoric was so violent and who was fooled by what they saw and heard. Plus: how did the trials of these few lead to the murders of so many? Available tomorrow on PPF+: our second episode on

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60:25

Politics on Trial: Darwin vs God / Darrow vs Bryan –...

Past Present Future ·

2025/11/02

We return to our series about the most significant trials in history with the trial of the twentieth century: Scopes ‘Monkey’ (1925), which was meant to be about a Tennessee schoolteacher but became a battle between science and religion and everything in between. What made it such a blockbuster showdown? Who really won and who really lost? And how are arguments from one hundred years ago still roiling American politics today? To get our free fortnightly newsletter delivered to your inbox with

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57:15

Live Special: Who Rules the World? Trump, Tech and...

Past Present Future ·

2025/10/29

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival: David talks to Bruno Maçães and Sarah Wynn-Williams about who is winning in the fight for control between China and America, between state power and corporate power and between AI and humanity. Where are the battlegrounds in the fight for the future? What are the weapons? And how will we know what victory looks like? Out now on PPF+: A bonus episode with more of your questions and suggestions for how to

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