Share Past Present Future
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
By David Runciman
4.9
197197 ratings
The podcast currently has 148 episodes available.
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 with seeing this as a competitive marketplace. From St. Paul to Citizens United, from John Stuart Mill to Jordan Peterson, what happens when ideas get turned into commodities? Who wins and who loses? And what is an ‘ideological entrepreneur’?
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Xmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. Find out more https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
To sign up for the latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter, out tomorrow, join our mailing list https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next Bad Idea: Modernisation!
Past Present Future is part of the Airwave podcast network.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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 Prizes. Why do we revere the winners of the science prizes when we know how contrived the other prizes are? What makes us so attached to this relic of an outmoded idea of scientific progress? And what happens when someone is struck down with ‘Nobelitis’?
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Xmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. PPF merch available too! Find out more at https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
Next up on Bad Ideas: The Marketplace of Ideas
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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’, beloved by American presidents from Nixon to Trump. Where does this idea come from? Is it conservative or revolutionary? If the majority are actually silent, how can anyone know what they are thinking? And aren’t the silent majority really the dead?
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Xmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. Find out more https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
Next up on Bad Ideas: Nobel Prizes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For the final (extended) episode in our American Elections series David talks to Gary Gerstle about the historical significance of Donald Trump’s decisive victory this week. Was this election and its outcome unprecedented in American history or are there parallels to guide us? Can Trump be both an existential threat to American democracy and a politician it’s possible for his opponents to work with? What is the likely shape of the new political order that his administration represents? And will democracy itself survive the experience?
Out now: a new bonus episode to accompany our Great Political Films series in which David talks to Helen Thompson about Apocalypse Now, the ultimate film about war and madness. Sign up now to PPF+ to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Xmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. Find out more https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
Next time: The History of Bad Ideas: The Silent Majority
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For the last episode in this season of great political films David explores Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966), which changed the face of political movie-making forever. Filmed to look like archive footage, featuring actual participants in the events it describes, and showing both sides of the vicious contest between insurgents and counter-insurgents, it humanises a horrifying conflict. It also raises the question: where is the line between realism and rage?
Coming on Saturday: a new bonus episode to accompany this series in which David talks to Helen Thompson about Apocalypse Now, the ultimate film about war and madness. Sign up now to PPF+ to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
To get our free fortnightly newsletter with guides, writing and clips exploring the themes of these episodes join our mailing list https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Christmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. Find out more https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
Next time: Gary Gerstle on the 2024 Presidential Election
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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 and Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe, which appeared within a few months of each other in 1964. Both films explore what might happen if America’s nuclear defence system went rogue. One is grimly hilarious; the other is utterly terrifying. Which packs the biggest punch today?
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Xmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. Find out more https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
Next time: The Battle of Algiers
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For today’s great political film David discusses Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963) with the Italian historian of ideas Lucia Rubinelli. How did a communist aristocrat from Milan come to make a film about a Sicilian prince? How did Burt Lancaster get cast in the leading role? Is this a political film or a film against politics? And what is the real meaning of the celebrated line: ‘If we want things to stay as they are, things must change…’?
Looking for Christmas presents? We have a special Christmas gift offer: give a subscription to PPF+ and your recipient will also receive a personally inscribed copy of David’s new book The History of Ideas. Find out more https://www.ppfideas.com/gifts
Next time: Dr Strangelove & Fail Safe w/ Jill Lepore
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today’s great political film is John Frankenheimer’s masterpiece of Cold War paranoia The Manchurian Candidate (1962), which came out the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s a 1960s movie about 1950s fears: brainwashing, the Korean War, McCarthyism, all shot through with Kennedy-era anxieties about sexual potency and psychoanalysis. Who’s a Soviet agent? Who’s a mummy’s boy? And it managed to anticipate what was coming next in American politics: the age of assassination.
A new bonus episode to accompany this series is out now: David explores why so many American presidents choose High Noon as their favourite film. Sign up now to PPF+ for just £5 per month or £50 a year and get all our other bonuses plus ad free listening too. https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
To get our free fortnightly newsletter with guides, writing and clips exploring the themes of these episodes join our mailing list https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: The Leopard w/ Lucia Rubinelli
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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 film made in the depths of WWII. Why did Churchill want the film’s production stopped and was he right to suspect it was about him? What does the film say about the politics of nostalgia and the illusions of heroism? And how is Blimp’s moustache like Kane’s Rosebud?
A new bonus episode to accompany this series is out on Saturday: David explores why so many American presidents choose High Noon as their favourite film. Sign up now to PPF+ for just £5 per month or £50 a year and get all our other bonuses plus ad free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
To get our free fortnightly newsletter with guides, writing and clips exploring the themes of these episodes join our mailing list https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: The Manchurian Candidate
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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 he get right and what does he get wrong about the trajectory of the life of Charles Foster Kane? What does the film reveal about the relationship between celebrity, influence and political power? And why is Rosebud not the real mystery at the heart of this story?
Like Kane, want more stuff? To get PPF merch – either an ethically-sourced canvas tote bag or a bone china mug – just go to our website https://www.ppfideas.com/merch
Next time: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The podcast currently has 148 episodes available.
5,368 Listeners
277 Listeners
141 Listeners
779 Listeners
116 Listeners
181 Listeners
159 Listeners
35 Listeners
315 Listeners
3,230 Listeners
1,731 Listeners
907 Listeners
46 Listeners
125 Listeners
19 Listeners