Past Present Future
Episodes
Politics on Trial: Socrates vs Democracy
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The first political trial in our new series is the one that set the template for all the others: the trial of Socrates in Athens in 399 BCE, which end...
Politics on Trial: A History of Lawfare
18 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To introduce our new series about historic political trials – from Socrates to Marine Le Pen – David explores what makes political confrontations ...
Ideas of Globalisation: What’s Gone Wrong? w/Dani Rodrik
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the final episode in this series David talks to the leading economist Dani Rodrik about the case he made in the early 2000s that globalisation was...
Ideas of Globalisation: The Crisis of the 1970s (and Trump!)
11 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to historian Meg Jacobs about how the 1970s changed everything for America’s understanding of its place in the global economy. How did f...
Ideas of Globalisation: Central Banks vs the People (and Trump!)
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today David talks to political and economic theorist Leah Downey about the role that central banks in general – and the Federal Reserve in particula...
Ideas of Globalisation: Hoover and Smoot-Hawley (and Trump!)
04 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to historian Gary Gerstle about the last time the Republican party got caught up in a tariffs disaster and how it changed American politic...
Ideas of Globalisation: Chamberlain and the Tariff Wars (and Trump!)
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we explore the explosive fight over tariffs that took place in Britain in the first decade of the twentieth century. David talks to historian Ro...
Ideas of Globalisation: Trade, Race and Empire (and Trump!)
27 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We start a new mini-series on the history of ideas of globalisation by exploring how arguments from 150 years ago foreshadow what’s happening with T...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Lenin and Trotsky
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To conclude this part of our revolutionary ideas series, we explore the overlapping lives and thinking of two emblematic twentieth-century revolutiona...
PPF Live Special: Churchill – The Politician With Nine Lives w/Robert Saunders
20 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Rite of Spring w/Dominic Dromgoole
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our third Parisian revolution is another explosive night in the theatre, this time in the world of dance. David talks to Dominic Dromgoole about Strav...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Ubu Roi w/Dominic Dromgoole
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Parisian revolution is a theatrical performance that produced a riot. David talks to theatre director Dominic Dromgoole about Alfred Jarry’...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Salon Des Refusés w/Dominic Dromgoole
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is the first of three this week with the theatre director and writer Dominic Dromgoole, exploring revolutionary events in the world ...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Marx and the Paris Commune
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today the first of four episodes about Parisian revolutions. We start with the definitive nineteenth-century revolutionary and his definitive revoluti...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Free Speech
06 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 f...
PPF Live Film Special: Network w/Helen Lewis
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We take a brief break from revolutionary ideas for a special live episode of PPF recorded in front of an audience at the Regent Street Cinema in Londo...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Darwin w/Adam Rutherford
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about the book that fundamentally altered our understanding of just about everything: Dar...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Taiping Revolution
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s revolutionary ideas come from China: David talks to historian Julia Lovell about the Taiping Revolution, another massive mid-19th-century up...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: 1848: The Radical Revolution w/Chris Clark
23 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our second of three episodes on the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 David and Chris Clark explore the forces demanding radical change...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: 1848: The Liberal Revolution w/Chris Clark
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of three episodes about the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 David is joined by historian Chris Clark to explore the ideas b...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Bayesian Revolution w/David Spiegelhalter
16 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s revolutionary idea is something a bit different: David talks to statistician David Spiegelhalter about how an eighteenth-century theory of p...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Slave Uprising: The Haitian Revolution
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is about a very different revolution from any we’ve discussed so far: David talks to historian Hank Gonzalez about the Haitian Rev...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: French Revolution 3: Paine
09 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For our third episode on the ideas behind the French Revolution, David talks to Richard Whatmore about the ubiquitous Thomas Paine, the Englishman who...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: French Revolution 2: Robespierre
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For our second episode on the people and ideas behind the French Revolution David talks to historian and biographer Ruth Scurr about the man who came ...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: French Revolution 1: Sieyès
02 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of three episodes about the people and ideas behind the French Revolution, David talks to Lucia Rubinelli about the man who helped kickst...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: American Revolution 2: The Constitution
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second of our two episodes about the American Revolution David talks to historian Eric Nelson about the ideas that shaped the US Constitution. ...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: American Revolution 1: The Declaration of Independence
23 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today it’s the first of two episodes about one of the most significant revolutions of all: the American Revolution. David talks to historian Eric Ne...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Industrial Revolution
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is about a revolution that started 250 years ago and is still going on (in the form of the digital revolution): the Industrial Revol...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: English Revolution 2: 1688
16 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second of our episodes with historian Clare Jackson on the English revolutions of the 17th century we discuss the one that usually gets called...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: English Revolution 1: Civil War
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas is about the event that is sometimes – but not always – called the English Revolution: the...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Scientific Revolution
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is about a revolution that took centuries to happen if it ever really happened at all: The Scientific Revolution. David talks to his...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: The Reformation (part 1): Luther
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s revolutionary thinker is Martin Luther, the man who upended the religious, political and intellectual life of Europe, maybe without entirely...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Humanism
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas is about a medieval movement that used the ancient past to rethink and reimagine the present a...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Magna Carta
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas is about a medieval document that is sometimes thought to contain a ground-breaking promise of...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Islam
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode in our history of revolutionary ideas explores the world-altering impact of Islam from the seventh century onwards. David talks to ...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Christianity w/Tom Holland
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode in our series on revolutionary ideas is a conversation covering two millennia with the historian Tom Holland exploring the never-end...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Socrates w/Agnes Callard
19 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To begin our history of revolutionary ideas in earnest, David talks to the philosopher Agnes Callard about Socrates, the philosopher who changed – a...
The History of Revolutionary Ideas: What Makes a Revolutionary Idea?
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To kick off our new series on revolutionary ideas past, present and future David talks to two regular PPF contributors – the philosopher Lea Ypi and...
The Great Political Films: The Zone of Interest
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The final episode in our great political films series explores Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023), his haunting take on the home life of ...
The Great Political Films: Zero Dark Thirty
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The penultimate episode in our great political films series explores Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012), her controversial take on the War on...
The Great Political Films: The Social Network
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The second David Fincher film in our series (after Fight Club) is The Social Network (2010), the Aaron Sorkin-scripted take on how Mark Zuckerberg cre...
The Great Political Films: There Will Be Blood
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our great political films series reaches the twenty-first century with Paul Thomas Anderson’s unforgettable There Will Be Blood (2007), starring Dan...
The Great Political Films: Fight Club w/ Helen Lewis
29 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to writer and journalist Helen Lewis about David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), the film that launched a thousand memes. Does this tale of...
The Great Political Films: Do The Right Thing
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our political films season has reached the late 1980s with Do The Right Thing (1989), Spike Lee’s searing take on racial tension on a Brooklyn block...
The Great Political Films: Kagemusha
22 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s great political film is Akira Kurosawa’s epic of war and deception Kagemusha (1980). Set in late sixteenth-century Japan it tells the stor...
The Great Political Films: Jeanne Dielman
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s great political film is Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), voted the greatest film of all time ...
The Great Political Films: The Candidate w/Chris Smith
15 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is a conversation between David and the former politician Chris Smith (long-time MP and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sp...
The Great Political Films: Z
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We resume our series on the great political films with Costa-Gavras’s Z (1969), the quintessential late 60s movie about assassination, conspiracy,...
The History of Bad Ideas: Televised Leadership Debates
08 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To finish this series of bad ideas, David tries to persuade Gary Gerstle of the futility of televised leadership debates. From Nixon vs Kennedy to Ha...
The History of Bad Ideas: Party Members Choosing Leaders
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For our penultimate bad idea in this series, David talks to Robert Saunders about what’s gone wrong with British politics since party members got to...
The History of Bad Ideas: Steady State Theory
01 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s bad idea is a theory of the universe: David talks to astrophysicist Chris Lintott about Steady State Theory, the rival cosmological model to...
The History of Bad Ideas: The End of History
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s bad idea concerns history itself: David talks to world historian Ayse Zarakol about the temptations and the pitfalls of the idea of The End ...
The History of Bad Ideas: Modernisation!
24 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For today’s bad idea David talks to political philosopher Alan Finlayson about what goes wrong when politicians get their hands on the concept of mo...
The History of Bad Ideas: The Marketplace of Ideas
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s bad idea is about how ideas get adopted, argued over and rejected: David talks to political philosopher Alan Finlayson about what’s wrong ...
The History of Bad Ideas: Nobel Prizes
17 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For our latest bad idea with an interesting history David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about what’s wrong with Nobel P...
The History of Bad Ideas: The Silent Majority
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To kick off our new series on the history of bad ideas David talks to historian Sophie Scott-Brown about the idea of ‘the silent majority’, belove...
American Elections: 2024: The Meaning of Trump’s Triumph
09 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the final (extended) episode in our American Elections series David talks to Gary Gerstle about the historical significance of Donald Trump’s de...
The Great Political Films: The Battle of Algiers
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the last episode in this season of great political films David explores Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966), which changed the fac...
The Great Political Films: Dr Strangelove & Fail Safe w/ Jill Lepore
03 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is about two great films on the same dark theme: David talks to American historian Jill Lepore about Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove a...
The Great Political Films: The Leopard w/ Lucia Rubinelli
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For today’s great political film David discusses Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963) with the Italian historian of ideas Lucia Rubinelli. How ...
The Great Political Films: The Manchurian Candidate
27 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s great political film is John Frankenheimer’s masterpiece of Cold War paranoia The Manchurian Candidate (1962), which came out the week o...
The Great Political Films: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode David discusses Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), a great patriotic anti-war ...
The Great Political Films: Citizen Kane
20 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) is many people’s favourite film of all time, including Donald Trump’s. Why does Trump love it so? What does...
The Great Political Films: Mr Smith Goes to Washington
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s great political film is Frank Capra’s Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), a much-loved tale of the little guy taking on the corrupt establ...
The Great Political Films: La Grande Illusion
13 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the first episode in our new series David explores Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion (1937), a great anti-war film that is also a melancholy me...
Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried and Effective Altruism
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to author Michael Lewis about SBF and EA: about the man he got to know before, during and after his spectacular fall and about the philoso...
American Elections: 2024: Is Anyone Winning?
06 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David checks in with Gary Gerstle one more time before November to explore where things now stand with the US presidential election. In a conversatio...
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Monk & Robot
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For episode four of our series on the history of thinking about thinking machines, David and Shannon discuss a very different sci-fi sensibility: Beck...
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
29 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Isaac Asimov’s ‘Franchise’
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ‘...
Thinking About Thinking Machines: Metropolis
22 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
What if… Scotland Had Voted for Independence?
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
What if… The Berlin Wall Hadn’t Fallen?
15 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
What if… The 1919 Paris Peace Conference Had Actually Kept the Peace?
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to historian Margaret MacMillan, author of the prize-winning Peacemakers, about whether the 1919 Paris Peace Conference deserves its repu...
What If… The Russian Revolution Hadn’t Been Bolshevik?
08 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is another big early twentieth-century counterfactual: David talks to the historian of Russia Edward Acton about how the Russian Rev...
What If… Franz Ferdinand Had Survived Sarajevo?
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 S...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Hamilton
01 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our Great Political Fictions re-release concludes with a musical: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wildly popular and increasingly controversial Hamilton (201...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: American Wife
31 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The penultimate episode in our Great Political Fictions re-release is about Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife (2008), which re-imagines the life o...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: The Line of Beauty
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Great Political Fiction is Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty (2004), which is set between Thatcher’s two dominant general electio...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: The Handmaid’s Tale
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the twelfth episode in our Great Political Fictions re-release, David discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), her unforgett...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Midnight’s Children
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s Great Political Fiction David explores Salman Rushdie’s 1981 masterpiece Midnight’s Children, the great novel about the life and deat...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Atlas Shrugged
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode David discusses Ayn Rand’s insanely long and insanely influential Atlas Shrugged (1957), the bible of free-market entreprene...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Mother Courage & Her Children
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: The Time Machine
25 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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-19...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
24 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 explore...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Phineas Redux
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The sixth Great Political Fiction in our summer re-release is Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux (1874), his lightly and luridly fictionalised account...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Middlemarch Part 2
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This second episode about George Eliot’s masterpiece explores questions of politics and religion, reputation and deception, truth and public opinion...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Middlemarch Part 1
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Great Political Fiction is George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872), which has so much going on that it needs two episodes to unpack it. In this...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Fathers and Sons
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our fourth Great Political Fiction is Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862), the definitive novel about the politics – and emotions – of inter...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Mary Stuart
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our third Great Political Fiction is Friedrich Schiller’s monumental play Mary Stuart (1800), which lays bare the impossible choices faced by two qu...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Gulliver’s Travels
19 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode on the Great Political Fictions is about Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – part adventure story, part satire of e...
Fifteen Fictions for Summer re-release: Coriolanus
18 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the first episode of the summer daily re-release of our series on the Great Political Fictions, David talks about Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (1608-...
What If… The Vietnam War Had Ended in 1964?
18 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What If… The Vietnam War Had Ended in 1964? For our latest counterfactual David talks to historian Thant Myint-U about his grandfather U Thant, UN S...
What If… Wallace not Truman Had Become US President in 1945?
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode explores one of the big counterfactuals of twentieth-century American politics: David talks to historian Benn Steil about how close ...
What If… The French Revolution Had Happened in China?
11 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For our second episode on big historical counterfactuals, David talks to world historian Ayse Zarakol about how the East might well have risen to glob...
What If… Science Counterfactuals w/ Adam Rutherford
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To kick off our new series on counterfactual histories David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about whether ‘What Ifs’ m...
The Great Political Fictions: Tim Rice on Evita
04 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Something different for our last episode on the Great Political Fictions as this time David talks to the person who wrote it: Tim Rice, the lyricist...
The Great Political Fictions: Helen Lewis on To Kill A Mockingbird
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (1960), one of the most widely read and best-loved ...
The Great Political Fictions: Lea Ypi on The Wild Duck
28 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The writer and political philosopher Lea Ypi talks about the impact on her of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck (1884), which she first read when she...
The Great Political Poems
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David talks to Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, hosts of the LRB’s Close Readings poetry podcast, about what makes a great political poem. Can great p...