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.
- Update frequency
- every 3 days
- Average duration
- 56 minutes
- Episodes
- 235
- Years Active
- 2023 - 2025
History of Ideas: Virginia Woolf
This week our history of the great essays and great essayists reaches the twentieth century and Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece ‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929). David discusses how an essay on the conditio…
00:54:44 |
Thu 27 Jul 2023
From Lincoln to Trump: What Happened to the Republican Party?
This week David talks to American historian Gary Gerstle about the shape-shifting journey of the US Republican Party, from the Civil War to the battles of today. How did the party of the North become…
01:00:23 |
Thu 20 Jul 2023
History of Ideas: Thoreau
For the third episode in this series about the great political essays, David explores Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’ (1849), a ringing call to resistance against democratic idiocy. Thoreau wanted to …
00:58:32 |
Thu 13 Jul 2023
Whose Space is it Anyway?
This week we talk to astrophysicist Chris Lintott and writer Tom Stevenson about the threat from outer space: is it the asteroids, is it the aliens, or is it us? What changed when space travel moved …
00:54:33 |
Thu 06 Jul 2023
Why J.S. Mill Matters w/ Tara Westover
This week David talks to Tara Westover and the philosopher Clare Chambers about the enduring legacy of John Stuart Mill. Reading Mill’s Essays on Religion changed Tara’s life: she explains what happe…
01:02:20 |
Thu 29 Jun 2023
Are There Too Many People?
This week David talks to science writer Meehan Crist about Thomas Malthus and the perennial question of overpopulation. Malthus wrote 225 years ago and was wrong about almost everything, yet his idea…
00:59:37 |
Thu 22 Jun 2023
History of Ideas: Hume
For the second episode in this season of History of Ideas, David discusses the Scottish philosopher David Hume and explores how eighteenth-century arguments about the national debt can help make sens…
01:01:30 |
Thu 15 Jun 2023
Rawls, Capitalism & Justice
This week Daniel Chandler and Lea Ypi join David to talk about the legacy of the great American political philosopher John Rawls and his theory of justice. Did Rawls provide a prescription for the on…
01:00:21 |
Thu 08 Jun 2023
Live Special: The American Century w/ David Miliband
This week’s episode was recorded live at the Hay Festival, where David was joined on stage by David Miliband and Helen Thompson to discuss the past, present and future of American power. What explain…
00:56:18 |
Thu 01 Jun 2023
AI: Can the Machines Really Think?
Gary Marcus and John Lanchester join David to discuss all things AI, from ChatGPT to the Turing test. Why is the Turing test such a bad judge of machine intelligence? If these machines aren’t thinkin…
00:54:46 |
Thu 25 May 2023
History of Ideas: Montaigne
For the first episode in the new series of History of Ideas – on the great essays and the great essayists – David discusses Montaigne, the man who invented a whole new way of writing and being read. …
00:54:33 |
Thu 18 May 2023
Living Behind the Iron Curtain
This week David talks to Katja Hoyer and Lea Ypi about life under communism. East Germany was the most successful of the communist states of Eastern Europe, measured by economic prosperity and sporti…
00:56:31 |
Thu 11 May 2023
How Dallas Saw the Future
This week David talks to Helen Thompson about Dallas and the end of oil. How did the world’s most popular soap opera come to explain the energy crisis and the future of a world hooked on fossil fuels…
00:53:04 |
Thu 04 May 2023
The Novel that Unravels Democracy
David talks to Ian McEwan about Italo Calvino’s The Watcher (1963), one of the greatest of all works of political fiction. Challenging, disturbing, redemptive: this is a book about who gets to count …
00:55:05 |
Thu 27 Apr 2023
Introducing Past Present Future
Past Present Future is a new weekly podcast with David Runciman, host and creator of Talking Politics, exploring the history of ideas from politics to philosophy, culture to technology. David talks t…
00:04:14 |
Wed 12 Apr 2023
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