Past Present Future
by David Runciman
Latest episode
Can Universities Survive? The Present Crisis w/Sam Freedman
Can Universities Survive? The Present Crisis w/Sam Freedman
About this podcast
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.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 357 episodes
- Can Universities Survive? The Present Crisis w/Sam Freedman · 58 min · Season 26 Episode 343We return to the question of whether universities can survive with an exploration of the roots of the current crisis facing UK universities and their prospects for recovery…
- American Elections Special: The 2026 Midterms in Historical Context · 1 h 12 min · Season 3 Episode 342Today’s episode is a conversation with the American historian Gary Gerstle about this week’s US midterm elections to explore whether we have reached another turning point in…
- Can Universities Survive? AI vs Higher Education · 1 h 0 min · Season 26 Episode 341Today’s episode in our series about the challenges facing universities looks at what might be the most direct threat of all: can they still fulfil their function if AI can write…
- Can Universities Survive? Politics and the International University w/Lea Ypi · 1 h 5 min · Season 26 Episode 340For our series about the current crisis facing universities David talks to writer, philosopher and LSE professor Lea Ypi about the role played by politics in universities around…
- Can Universities Survive? The Great Expansion Part 2 · 1 h 0 min · Season 26 Episode 339Today’s episode is part two of David’s conversation with political theorist Alan Finlayson about the up-and-down history of British universities since 1945, taking the story from…
- Can Universities Survive? The Great Expansion · 1 h 1 min · Season 26 Episode 338In today’s episode for our series about the plight facing universities David talks to political theorist Alan Finlayson about what’s happened to higher education in the UK since…
- Can Universities Survive? The Thousand-Year Story Part 2 · 1 h 0 min · Season 26 Episode 337Today’s episode is the second part of David's conversation with historian William Whyte about how universities have survived for nearly a thousand years and whether they can last…
- Can Universities Survive? The Thousand-Year Story · 60 min · Season 26 Episode 336We start a new series about the long history and current predicament of universities by going back to the beginning. David talks to historian William Whyte about the origin story…
- The History of Transhumanism: Silicon Valley · 57 min · Season 25 Episode 335Today’s episode in our series about transhumanism and its astonishing influence looks at how it helped build Silicon Valley. David talks to Duncan Bell about what happened when…
- The History of Transhumanism: New Horizons · 57 min · Season 25 Episode 334In part two of our series about how transhumanism shaped our world, David talks to Duncan Bell about what happened when sci fi dreams started to become reality. What changed when…
- The History of Transhumanism: Origins · 1 h 1 min · Season 25 Episode 333Today it’s the first episode in a new series about the weird and wonderful world of transhumanism: the idea that human beings can be transformed by technology and machines. David…
- An Ageing World: Simone de Beauvoir on Old Age · 54 min · Season 24 Episode 332For the final episode in our series on living in an ageing world David talks to Lyndsey Stonebridge about one of the most interesting and challenging of all writers on the…
- An Ageing World: The Problem of Gerontocracy · 59 min · Season 24 Episode 331In today’s episode for our series about living in ageing societies, David talks to historian and legal scholar Samuel Moyn about the problem of gerontocracy, aka the rule of the…
- An Ageing World: The Meaning of Death · 58 min · Season 24 Episode 330In today’s episode of our series about the significance of longer human lives David talks to the doctor and writer Richard Coker about the meaning of the event that comes for all…
- An Ageing World: Lifespan vs Healthspan · 56 min · Season 24 Episode 329To start our new series about what it means to live in a world of ageing populations, David talks to geneticist Adam Rutherford about the benefits and pitfalls of increasing…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: Iris Murdoch · 1 h 4 min · Season 23 Episode 328Today is the final episode in our series about the relationship between twentieth-century biography and philosophy. David talks to Nikhil Krishnan about the life and thought of…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: Hannah Arendt · 54 min · Season 23 Episode 327In today’s episode about the intersection between twentieth century philosophy and biography David talks to the historian and literary critic Lyndsey Stonebridge about the life…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: Elizabeth Anscombe · 1 h 1 min · Season 23 Episode 326Today’s episode in our series about twentieth-century philosophy and biography explores the life and thought of Elizabeth Anscombe (G. E. M. Anscombe), a remarkable and…
- Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Gladstone vs Disraeli Part 2 (Burnham vs Badenoch) · 55 min · Season 14 Episode 325In the second part of David’s conversation with historian Robert Saunders about the impact of the Bulgarian crisis of 1876 on the course of British politics, they discuss how…
- Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Gladstone vs Disraeli – The Bulgarian Horrors · 57 min · Season 14 Episode 324In our occasional series with historian Robert Saunders about significant political anniversaries, we remember the appearance of a pamphlet exactly 150 years ago that changed the…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: Jean-Paul Sartre · 55 min · Season 23 Episode 323In today’s episode exploring how twentieth-century philosophy and biography intersect David talks to philosopher and biographer Kate Kirkpatrick about Jean-Paul Sartre, a thinker…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: J. L. Austin · 1 h 1 min · Season 23 Episode 322David talks to philosopher and author Nikhil Krishnan about the life and times of a little known but highly influential twentieth-century philosopher: J. L. Austin, who believed…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: Camus · 59 min · Season 23 Episode 321In our series about how twentieth-century philosophy and biography intersect, David talks to philosopher Alex Carter about the life of Albert Camus, novelist, playwright…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: Simone Weil · 1 h 2 min · Season 23 Episode 320The second life we explore in our series about the twentieth-century philosophers could not be more different from the first: David talks to philosopher Alex Carter about Simone…
- The Lives of the Philosophers: A. J. Ayer · 1 h 3 min · Season 23 Episode 319Today we begin a new series exploring twentieth-century philosophy through the lives of the people behind the ideas. First up David talks to philosopher Nikhil Krishnan about A…
- Forensics on Trial · 1 h 0 min · Episode 318In today’s episode David talks to forensic anthropologist Sue Black about what happens when forensic science and forensic expertise end up on trial in the courtroom. When and how…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Overdiagnosis · 59 min · Season 5 Episode 317We come to the end of this series of bad ideas with a conversation with neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan about the problems of living in an age of diagnosis, when all medical…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Short-Form Video · 1 h 0 min · Season 5 Episode 316Today’s bad idea is one with a very recent history but also a long backstory: David talks to author and journalist James Marriott about what happens when the written word gets…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Decadence · 57 min · Season 5 Episode 315Today’s bad idea is also one that is very hard to pin down: David talks to writer and literary scholar Ian Ellison about the concept of decadence, which went from explaining the…
- The History of Bad Ideas: The Romantic Hero · 56 min · Season 5 Episode 314Today’s bad idea spans literature, film, pop culture and plenty else besides: David talks to literary critic and memoirist Catherine Taylor about what’s wrong with romantic…
- The History of Bad Ideas: The Electoral College · 57 min · Season 5 Episode 313Today’s bad idea is one the United States has been stuck with for a long time: David talks to historian of America Adam Smith about the damage done by the idea of the electoral…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Utilitarianism · 58 min · Season 5 Episode 312Today’s episode in the history of bad ideas is about one of the central ideas in modern philosophy: utilitarianism, or the view that what matters is the greatest happiness of the…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Political Leadership is What Counts · 59 min · Season 5 Episode 311Today’s bad idea is a pervasive political myth: the notion that what really matters at election time is political leadership. David talks to political scientist Jane Green about…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Celebrity · 1 h 8 min · Season 5 Episode 310David talks to historian and broadcaster Greg Jenner about the surprising history of the idea of celebrity, from Roman generals to 18th-century child stars to contemporary pop…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Deliverism · 57 min · Season 5 Episode 309Today’s episode is about a bad idea with a very recent history: David talks to political historian David Klemperer about the dangers of deliverism. When did the view that…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Narrative History · 56 min · Season 5 Episode 308Today’s bad idea is a way of doing history: David talks to historian Alec Ryrie about the seductions and pitfalls of narrative history. Why do we need more Herodotus and less…
- The History of Bad Ideas: Hysteria · 59 min · Season 5 Episode 307For the first in a new set of episodes about bad ideas with interesting histories David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about hysteria, an ancient idea that…
- Where Are We Going? The Future of the Future · 58 min · Season 19 Episode 306In the second part of their conversation about what has happened to our ideas of the future David and Ivan Krastev explore where the future is going next. Why do our expectations…
- Where Are We Going? The Idea of the Future · 1 h 1 min · Season 19 Episode 305Today’s episode is the first of two with writer and political scientist Ivan Krastev exploring what has happened to our ideas of the future. When did thinking about the future…
- Live Film Special: Never Let Me Go w/Adam Rutherford · 56 min · Season 16 Episode 304Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about Mark…
- Now & Then with Robert Saunders: The Brexit Referendum 10 Years On · 1 h 3 min · Season 14 Episode 303Today’s episode in our occasional series looking at significant political anniversaries explores the causes and consequences of the Brexit Referendum, which took place 10 years…
- Live Special: Jimmy Wales on the Lessons of Wikipedia · 57 min · Episode 302Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival: David talks to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales about what we can learn from the…
- The Great Political Fictions: HHhH · 58 min · Season 2 Episode 301Our final great political fiction (for now!) is a meta-fiction and auto-fiction that is also a compelling work of historical reconstruction. Laurent Binet’s HHhH (2010) tells the…
- The Great Political Fictions: The Years · 56 min · Season 2 Episode 300The penultimate great political fiction in this series is not strictly a fiction: it’s Annie Ernaux’s retelling of her own life in The Years (2008), thereby recapturing the story…
- The Great Political Fictions: The Human Factor · 1 h 0 min · Season 2 Episode 299Today’s political fiction is a spy novel, a Cold War comedy and a meditation on the nature of good and evil: Graham Greene’s The Human Factor. Why has Greene so fallen out of…
- The Great Political Fictions: The Dispossessed · 1 h 2 min · Season 2 Episode 298Today’s great political fiction is a path-breaking work of science fiction: David explores Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974), which imagines a world without the need for…
- The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Part 2 w/Catherine Taylor · 1 h 1 min · Season 2 Episode 297In the second of two episodes about Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, David talks to critic and memoirist Catherine Taylor about the novel’s place in the history of feminism…
- The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook · 1 h 0 min · Season 2 Episode 296In today’s episode David explores Doris Lessing’s bold and brilliant The Golden Notebook (1962), a book about female emancipation, political disillusionment and much, much more…
- The Great Political Fictions: Brave New World · 1 h 5 min · Season 2 Episode 295For the first in a new set of episodes about some of the great political fictions of the past hundred years David explores Aldous Huxley’s much misunderstood dystopian…
- Live Film Special: Good Night, and Good Luck w/Helen Lewis · 1 h 2 min · Season 16 Episode 294Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about George Clooney’s Good…
