This week’s episode on the great political fictions is about Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – part adventure story, part satire of early-eighteenth-century party politics, but above all a coruscating reflection on the failures of human perspective and self-knowledge. Why do we find it so hard to see ourselves for who we really are? What makes us so vulnerable to mindless feuds and wild conspiracy theories? And what could we learn from the talking horses?
More from the LRB: Clare Bucknell on Swift the satirist ‘Swift’s satire was fabulous as well as honest, a distorting magnifying glass as well as a mirror.’ Terry Eagleton on Swift’s double standards ‘Swift and Montaigne are outraged by colonial brutality while being deep-dyed authoritarians themselves.’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

History of Ideas: Gulliver’s Travels

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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;Brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books.
New episodes every Thursday and Sunday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

History

Society & Culture

News

Politics

Courses

Our series on the great political novels and plays resumes with George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872), which has so much going on that it needs two episodes to unpack it. In this episode David discusses the significance of the book being set in 1829-32 and the reasons why Nietzsche was so wrong to characterise it as a moralistic tale. Plus he explains why a book about personal relationships is also a deeply political novel.
To get two bonus episodes from our recent Bad Ideas series – on Email and VAR – sign up now to PPF+ and enjoy ad-free listening as well www.ppfideas.com
Next time: Middlemarch (part 2) on marriage, hypocrisy, guilt and redemption.
Coming soon on the Great Political Fictions: Phineas Redux, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Time Machine, Mother Courage and her Children, and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Great Political Fictions: Middlemarch (part 1)

For our last episode in this series David is joined by Helen Lewis to discuss Mesmerism – aka animal magnetism – an eighteenth-century method of hypnosis for which great medical benefits were claimed. Was its originator, Franz Mesmer, a charlatan or a healer? Was his movement science or religion or something in between? And what can it tell us about twenty-first century phenomena from online social contagion to hypnotherapy? 
To get two bonus Bad Ideas episodes – on Email and VAR – sign up now to PPF+, where you will also get all our past and future bonus episodes plus ad-free listening www.ppfieas.com 
Coming next: The Great Political Fictions resumes with Middlemarch, the greatest of them all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Bad Ideas: Mesmerism

For our penultimate episode in this series David talks to Kathleen Stock about Roland Barthes’s idea of the Death of the Author (1967). Once very fashionable, the notion that readers not writers are the arbiters of what a text means has had a long and sometimes painful afterlife. As well as exploring its curious appeal and its persistent blindspots, Kathleen discusses her personal experience of how it can go wrong.
Two bonus Bad Ideas episodes for PPF+ subscribers – on Email and VAR – will be available very soon. Sign up now and get ad-free listening too! www.ppfideas.com
Coming Next: Helen Lewis on Mesmerism
Coming Soon: The Great Political Fictions Part 2, starting with Middlemarch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Bad Ideas: The Death of the Author

In this episode of our series on the lingering hold of bad ideas David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about the arguments made at the turn of the last century against giving the vote to women. Why were so many women against female enfranchisement? What did attitudes to women in politics reveal about the failings of men? And where can the echoes of these arguments still be heard today?
Helen Lewis’s Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights is available wherever you get your books https://bit.ly/3wp8DNX 
Sign up now to PPF+ to get ad-free listening and bonus episodes to accompany every series. Coming soon: two bonus bad ideas just for PPF+ subscribers www.ppfideas.com 
Next time on The History of Bad Ideas: Kathleen Stock discusses The Death of the Author. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Bad Ideas: Anti-Suffragettes

For the latest episode in our series about the hold of bad ideas, we welcome back the geneticist Adam Rutherford to talk about Linnaean taxonomy, a seemingly innocuous scheme of classification that has had deeply pernicious consequences. From scientific racism to social stratification to search engine optimisation, taxonomy gets everywhere. Can we escape its grip?
Sign up now to PPF+ to get ad-free listening and bonus episodes to accompany every series. Coming soon: two bonus bad ideas just for PPF+ subscribers www.ppfideas.com  Next time on The History of Bad Ideas: Helen Lewis on women against the enfranchisement of women. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

History of Ideas: Gulliver’s Travels

Download our free app to listen on your phone