Past Present Future Podcast
banner
ppfideas.bsky.social
Past Present Future Podcast
@ppfideas.bsky.social

The History of Ideas Podcast. Every Wednesday and Sunday with David Runciman. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Find us at 🔗 www.ppfideas.com

David Walter Runciman, 4th Viscount Runciman of Doxford, is an English academic and podcaster who until 2024 taught politics and history at the University of Cambridge, where he was Professor of Politics. From October 2014 to October 2018 he was also head of the Department of Politics and International Studies. In April 2024 he decided to resign his position at the university to focus on his podcast full-time. He was subsequently made Honorary Professor of Politics. .. more

Political science 70%
Sociology 9%
Pinned
BONUS EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today’s bonus is part 2 of David’s conversation with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social about how the question of Irish Home Rule blew up British politics. What kept Britain from falling into the abyss of civil war in 1914?

Join PPF+ now: www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Today, on @ppfideas.bsky.social, we're exploring the Home Rule crisis of 1912-14: the closest modern Britain has come to civil war.

It's an amazing story, in which Conservatives supplied weapons to paramilitaries, built refugee camps and fomented mutiny in the army.

So here's a short intro...🧵

An absolute treasure trove of a thread from Robert for this week's eps ✨ 👇
This week on @ppfideas.bsky.social, we're exploring "Home Rule for Ireland!"

Home Rule shattered the Liberal Party, broke the women's suffrage movement, brought thousands onto the streets and drove Britain to the brink of civil war.

In the next two episodes, we ask why. So here a quick intro... 🧵
This week on @ppfideas.bsky.social, we're exploring "Home Rule for Ireland!"

Home Rule shattered the Liberal Party, broke the women's suffrage movement, brought thousands onto the streets and drove Britain to the brink of civil war.

In the next two episodes, we ask why. So here a quick intro... 🧵

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today’s episode in our occasional series with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social on significant political anniversaries looks at the event that blew British politics apart at the start of 1886. The ‘Hawarden Kite’.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Reposted by David Runciman

Judge: Are you Nicolas Madura Moros?
Maduro: [In Spanish, Inner City Press interpretation] I am the the president of Venezuela, I consider myself a prisoner of war. I was captured at my home in Caracas
Judge: Let me intervene. There will be time for this

Watch this space Chris, watch this space ... 😉

Reposted by Marianne Hundt

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

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?

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Happy New Year to you too, hope you enjoy!!

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today it’s the last in our series of live film episodes: David talks to film director & 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.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

The fourth episode in our season of live recordings is about 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.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Merry Christmas from Rosa, @ppfideas.bsky.social team & me 😍! In the latest episode of the podcast, David & I discuss von Trotta's film "Rosa Luxemburg" & the life and politics of “the most brilliant intellect of all the scientific heirs of Marx and Engels Marx and Engels", as Franz Mehring put it.
NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today in our season of live recordings David and @leaypi.bsky.social. look 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.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Reposted by Margot C. Finn

What could be more Christmassy than @leaypi.bsky.social on Rosa Luxemburg?! 🎁
NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today in our season of live recordings David and @leaypi.bsky.social. look 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.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Reposted by Lea Ypi

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today in our season of live recordings David and @leaypi.bsky.social. look 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.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Reposted by David Runciman

My non-fiction Book of 2025

I binge-read it - it's shockingly readable while dealing with heavy stuff. (philosophy etc).
#books #ideas #philosophy

🤣

BONUS EPISODE OUT NOW!

David talks to film historian Harrison Whitaker about Frank Capra’s 'It’s A Wonderful Life' (1946), a Xmas tearjerker that also manages to be an exploration of personal identity, social justice, moral individualism & free will.

Join PPF+ now: www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Have you read/seen Designated Mourner, Christopher? Coming up!

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

The 2nd episode in our live series 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.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today is the 1st in our series of live eps recorded at the Regent St Cinema in London: David talks to crime writers Nicci Gerrard & Sean French (aka @niccifrench.bsky.social) about Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), based on Patrick Hamilton’s play.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Isn’t it!!
NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

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. How did Mandela defend himself?

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Thanks K!
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork

Spotted on Southwold pier: “He who controls the Past controls the Future. He who controls the Present controls the Past.” George Orwell

Love this, BG!

Reposted by David Runciman

@ppfideas.bsky.social

Hey

For the second year running my most listened to podcast is PPF.

Merry Christmas and here's to a (hopefully but unlikely) more peaceful 2026.

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

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).

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Reposted by David Runciman

I studied Bentham (philosopher) back in a uni course on Victorian Culture.
Bentham the Dickensian Gradgrind.

Here's Runciman and suddenly there's so much more to Bentham!
Fascinating and he tells it all like unraveling a mystery novel. 😎
"Blatant idiocy"! 🙆