Past Present Future Podcast
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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
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
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 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

🤣

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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!

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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

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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!!
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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.

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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"! 🙆
David Runciman, Helen Thompson, and I reassembled what once would have been a FiveThirtyEight x Talking Politics podcast crossover while I was in London.

Call it the ghosts of two podcasts past!

It'll be in the GD POLITICS podcast feed later today!

Thanks WRN!

🤣

Think you’ll be surprised by the context of these red trousers!!

BONUS EPISODE OUT NOW!

In this PPF+ bonus to accompany our episode on the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial, David explores the book at the heart of the case. Does the focus on sex miss the central themes of the book? And what is it with the red trousers?

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

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Today we return to our series about epoch-making trials with the case of the book they tried & failed to ban. In 1960 Penguin Books was prosecuted over its plans to produce a cheap, unexpurgated edition of DH Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover.'

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Shoutout received and appreciated!

Great to see, thanks Philip!

Reposted by David Runciman

Wonderful discussion with Ian McEwan on the @ppfideas.bsky.social podcast. I would’ve loved to listen to another hour of this.

www.ppfideas.com/episodes/ian...
Ian McEwan on the Present as Future Past
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www.ppfideas.com

Thanks Nathan!

Hey, thank YOU Rebecca!! More tickling to come in 2026...
Huge thanks to everyone involved in making these excellent podcasts, for tickling my brain and helping me understand the world a little better
@ppfideas.bsky.social
@ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social
@bunkerpod.bsky.social
@rostaylor.bsky.social for More Jam Tomorrow
& National Museums Liverpool podcast

Reposted by David Runciman

Huge thanks to everyone involved in making these excellent podcasts, for tickling my brain and helping me understand the world a little better
@ppfideas.bsky.social
@ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social
@bunkerpod.bsky.social
@rostaylor.bsky.social for More Jam Tomorrow
& National Museums Liverpool podcast