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 Thursday and Sunday.

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Episodes

PPF Live Special: Churchill – The Politician With Nine Lives w/Robert Saunders

Today’s episode is the second of our two recent live recordings of PPF, this one in front of an audience at the Bath Curious Minds Festival. David talks to historian Robert Saunders about the life of Winston Churchill and all its twists and turns of fortune: from disgrace in WWI, economic disaster in the 1920s, wilderness in the 1930s, through to redemption in 1945 and rejection by the voters in the same year. How to make sense of it all? Is there a thread that connects the ups and downs? Has th...

Apr 20, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 178

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Rite of Spring w/Dominic Dromgoole

Our third Parisian revolution is another explosive night in the theatre, this time in the world of dance. David talks to Dominic Dromgoole about Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which provoked absolute outrage when it premiered in 1913. Is that what its impresario Diaghilev wanted? How did Nijinsky cope? Did the response foreshadow the trauma to come in 1914? And how did the set designer Roerich end up playing a part in American presidential history? Dominic Dromgoole’s Astonish Me! First Nights...

Apr 17, 2025•47 min•Season 11Ep. 177

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

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: Stra...

Apr 15, 2025•46 min•Season 11Ep. 176

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Salon Des Refusés w/Dominic Dromgoole

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 mode...

Apr 13, 2025•43 min•Season 11Ep. 175

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Marx and the Paris Commune

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 Le...

Apr 10, 2025•56 min•Season 11Ep. 174

The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Free Speech

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 now https://bit.ly/4...

Apr 06, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 11Ep. 173