Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS

By Talking Politics

A new series of talks by David Runciman, in which he explores some of the most important thinkers and prominent ideas lying behind modern politics – from Hobbes to Gandhi, from democracy to patriarchy... more

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The podcast currently has 27 episodes available.

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Number 1: Luxemburg on Revolution
Rosa Luxemburg wrote ‘The Russian Revolution’ (1918) from a jail cell in Germany. In it she described how the Bolshevik revolution was going to change the world but also explained how and why it was already going badly wrong. David explores the origins of Luxemburg’s insights, from her experiences in Poland to her love/hate relationship with Lenin. Plus he tells the story of her terrible end. Free version to download Recommended version to buy Going Deeper: Vladimir Lenin, ‘What Is to be Done?’ (1902)Hannah Arendt, ‘A Heroine of Revolution,’ The New York Review of Books (1966)Kate Evans, Red Rosa (2015)(Audio): In Our Time, 'Rosa Luxemburg' (2017) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
March 09, 202146min
Number 2: Fanon on Colonialism
Frantz Fanon was a psychiatrist who both experienced and analysed the impact of colonial violence. In The Wretched of the Earth (1961) he developed an account of politics that sought to channel violent resistance to colonialism as a force for change. It is a deliberately shocking book. David explores what Fanon’s argument says about the possibility of moving beyond the power of the modern state. Free online version of the text:http://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdfRecommended version to purchase: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/573/57385/the-wretched-of-the-earth/9780141186542.htmlGoing Deeper:Megan Vaughan for the LRB on Fanon and psychiatry in North AfricaFrantz Fanon, Toward the African revolution: political essaysFrantz Fanon, Black skin, white masks (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2008).(Video) Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers [film] (1966)Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Preface’, in Frantz Fanon, The wretched of the earth (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 2001)Alice Cherki, Frantz Fanon: a portrait, Nadia Benabid, trans. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 18, 202042min
Number 3: Arendt on Action
Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958) is a remarkably prophetic book. At its heart is an analysis of the relationship between labour, work and action, set against a time of rapid technological change. Arendt worried about the power of computers, believed in the capacity of people to reinvent themselves through politics and despaired of the influence of Thomas Hobbes. Was she right? Recommended version to purchase: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo29137972.html Going Deeper:James Miller in the LRB on Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt, The Origins of TotalitarianismHannah Arendt, Eichman in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of EvilIn Our Time on Hannah ArendtMatthew Beard for the Guardian, ‘With Robots, is a life without work one we’d want to live?’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 15, 202045min
Number 4: Marx and Engels on Revolution
The Communist Manifesto (1848) remains the most famous revolutionary text of all. But what was the problem with politics that only a revolution could solve? And why were the working class the only people who could solve it? David explores what Marx and Engels really had to say about capitalism, crisis and class and he asks what still resonates from that message today. Free online version of the text:http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61/pg61-images.html Recommended version to purchase: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/texts-political-thought/marx-later-political-writings?format=PBGoing Deeper:Karl Marx, ‘The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German ideologyJonathan Wolff, Why read Marx today? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)Gareth Stedman Jones, Karl Marx: greatness and illusion (London: Allen Lane, 2016)In Our Time on Marx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 01, 202044min
Number 5: Tocqueville on Democracy
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835/40) can claim to be the best book ever written about democracy and the best book ever written about America. David discusses what Tocqueville was expecting when he went to see American democracy for himself and what he actually found. Tocqueville was amazed and impressed by the American way of doing politics, but his fears about how its democracy might go wrong remain as prescient as ever. Free online version of the text: Volume 1 and Volume 2Recommended version to purchase: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Democracy-America-Essays-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447601Going Deeper:In Our Time on Tocqueville’s Democracy in AmericaHarvey C. Mansfield, Jr, Tocqueville: a very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Annette Gordon Reed, ‘America’s Original Sin: Slavery and the Legacy of White Supremacy’Hugh Brogan, Alexis de Tocqueville: prophet of democracy in the age of revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).Talking Politics American History series on the 15th and 19th amendment Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
April 30, 202045min