91 episodes
Past Present Future David Runciman
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- History
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4.7 • 256 Ratings
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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. Brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books.
New episodes every Thursday and Sunday.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Great Political Fictions: The Handmaid’s Tale
For the final episode in the current series, David discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (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 game-changing election of 1906.
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To sign up for our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this and future series, just click on the Newsletter link in our Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/ppfideas
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The Great Political Fictions: Midnight’s Children
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 Tale
Coming next week on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections
Sign up now to PPF+ to get 2 bonus episodes every month and ad-free listening www.ppfideas.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
The Great Political Fictions: Atlas Shrugged
In this episode David discusses Ayn Rand’s insanely long and insanely influential Atlas Shrugged (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 Children
Coming soon on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections
Sign up now to PPF+ to get 2 bonus episodes every month and ad-free listening www.ppfideas.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
The Great Political Fictions: Mother Courage and Her Children
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 17th century. 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 Shrugged
Coming next week on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections
Sign up now to PPF+ to get 2 bonus episodes every month and ad-free listening www.ppfideas.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
The Great Political Fictions: The Time Machine
H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) isn’t just a book about time travel. It’s also full of late-19th century 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 Children
Coming soon on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections
To receive our fortnightly newsletter just follow the link here https://linktr.ee/ppfideas
Sign up now to PPF+ to get 2 bonus episodes every month and ad-free listening www.ppfideas.com
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The Great Political Fictions: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a story that it’s easy to know without really knowing it at all. This week’s episode explores 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 Elections
Sign up now to PPF+ to get 2 bonus episodes every month and ad-free listening www.ppfideas.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Customer Reviews
Midnights children
Loved all of the PPF podcasts. Intelligent and perceptive, each episode slowly unfolds to reveal insights into books that you may have read or not, it doesn’t matter as buy the end you are grateful to have had it explored for you by a wise and kindly mind.
I haven’t read midnights children since it came out but with David’s guidance I was transported back to where I was when reading it and at the same time given a whole new perspective on the work. Keep up the great work.
3 Ms
I very much enjoy PPF as I have David’s pervious podcasts. And Mesmerism +Middlemarch x2 have been a particular pleasure. Although I was distressed to hear (in MM part 1) David describe the first railway as Darlington to Stockport…
Sheer bliss
The first part on Middlemarch was an absolute joy