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
American Elections: 2024: Is Anyone Winning?
David checks in with Gary Gerstle one more time before November to explore where things now stand with the US presidential election. In a conversation recorded in the immediate aftermath of the Walz/…
00:58:07 |
Sun 06 Oct 2024
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Monk & Robot
For episode four of our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines, David and Shannon discuss a very different sci-fi sensibility: Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series (A Psalm for the …
00:59:02 |
Thu 03 Oct 2024
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Today’s episode in our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines explores the novel that inspired Blade Runner: Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). David tal…
00:58:30 |
Sun 29 Sep 2024
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Isaac Asimov’s ‘Franchise’
In today’s episode in our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines, David and Shannon discuss Isaac Asimov’s 1955 short story ‘Franchise’, which imagines the American presidential el…
00:56:17 |
Thu 26 Sep 2024
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Metropolis
For the first episode in our new series on the history of thinking about thinking machines, David talks to philosopher Shannon Vallor about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). The last great silent film …
00:55:02 |
Sun 22 Sep 2024
What if… Scotland Had Voted for Independence?
For our last episode in this series of historical counterfactuals, David talks to the historian Ben Jackson about what might have happened if the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum had gone the ot…
01:00:01 |
Thu 19 Sep 2024
What if… The Berlin Wall Hadn’t Fallen?
Our counterfactuals series moves forward to 1989: David talks to Lea Ypi about what might have happened if the Berlin Wall hadn’t fallen when it did. Was the night it came down really just one big ac…
00:56:13 |
Sun 15 Sep 2024
What if… The 1919 Paris Peace Conference Had Actually Kept the Peace?
David talks to historian Margaret MacMillan, author of the prize-winning Peacemakers, about whether the 1919 Paris Peace Conference deserves its reputation as a missed opportunity and the harbinger o…
00:58:38 |
Thu 12 Sep 2024
What If… The Russian Revolution Hadn’t Been Bolshevik?
Today’s episode is another big early twentieth-century counterfactual: David talks to the historian of Russia Edward Acton about how the Russian Revolution might have unfolded if the Left SRs and not…
00:58:32 |
Sun 08 Sep 2024
What If… Franz Ferdinand Had Survived Sarajevo?
We return to our series on historical counterfactuals with the big one: how might WWI have been avoided? David talks to Chris Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers, the definitive history of the July cri…
00:54:44 |
Thu 05 Sep 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Hamilton
Our Great Political Fictions re-release concludes with a musical: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wildly popular and increasingly controversial Hamilton (2015). What does it get right and what does it get wrong…
00:57:42 |
Sun 01 Sep 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: American Wife
The penultimate episode in our Great Political Fictions re-release is about Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife (2008), which re-imagines the life of First Lady Laura Bush.One of the great novels about…
00:56:17 |
Sat 31 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: The Line of Beauty
Today’s Great Political Fiction is Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty (2004), which is set between Thatcher’s two dominant general election victories of 1983 and 1987. A novel about the intersect…
00:54:59 |
Fri 30 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: The Handmaid’s Tale
For the twelfth episode in our Great Political Fictions re-release, David discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), her unforgettable dystopian vision of a future American patriarchy. W…
00:54:35 |
Thu 29 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Midnight’s Children
In today’s Great Political Fiction 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…
00:55:08 |
Wed 28 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Atlas Shrugged
In today’s 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-so…
01:00:15 |
Tue 27 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Mother Courage & Her Children
Our ninth Great Political Fiction is Bertolt Brecht’s classic anti-war play, written in 1939 at the start of one terrible European war but set in the time of another: the Thirty Years’ War of the 17t…
00:55:29 |
Mon 26 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: The Time Machine
Our eighth Great Political Fiction is H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) which isn’t just a book about time travel. It’s also full of late-19th century fear and paranoia about what evolution and pr…
00:57:33 |
Sun 25 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Today’s Great Political Fiction is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) - a story that it’s easy to know without really knowing it at all. David explores all the ways that Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale confo…
00:52:41 |
Sat 24 Aug 2024
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Phineas Redux
The sixth Great Political Fiction in our summer re-release is Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux (1874), his lightly and luridly fictionalised account of parliamentary polarisation in the age of Gladst…
00:55:40 |
Fri 23 Aug 2024
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