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David Runciman

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 Thursday and Sunday.

Past Present Future

Today’s episode in Politics on Trial is about the most famous trial in literature and one that never actually takes place. David talks to writer and literary scholar Ian Ellison about Franz Kafka’s The Trial, first published in 1925. What is the meaning of a book about a legal process that never happens? How was it inspired by Kafka’s failed love life? Why has it given rise to so many different understandings of what makes our world Kafkaesque? And how did a work of fiction that is full of weird and wonderful ideas get associated with mindless bureaucracy?

If you’d like to get tickets for the first screening in our autumn film season at the Regent Street Cinema in London on 5th September – Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, followed by a live recording of PPF with the crime writers Nicci Gerard and Sean French – they are available now https://www.ppfideas.com/events

Coming Next: a PPF+ Highlights Special
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Politics on Trial 100th Anniversary Special: Franz Kafka’s The Trial

Today in Politics on Trial David tells the tale of the Dreyfus Affair that split France down the middle at the turn of the last century and revealed the grip of a whole host of conspiracy theories. Across a series of courts martial, libel trials, treason trials and parliamentary commissions, the story of a letter found in a wastebin turned into a saga about who really controlled the country. Was it the Jews? The Jesuits? The Freemasons? The army? The Germans? Or nobody at all? Why did Alfred Dreyfus find himself at the centre of it all? And what does all this madness tell us about the paranoid state of American politics today?

Tickets are available now for our autumn film season at the Regent Street Cinema in London, starting on 5th September with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope followed by a live recording of PPF with special guests Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, aka the best-selling husband-and-wife crime-writing duo Nicci French. For tickets and details on all the films https://www.ppfideas.com/events

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Politics on Trial: Dreyfus vs the Conspiracy Theory

Today’s episode in Politics on Trial is about three trials that took place over two months in the late spring of 1895 that brought about the destruction of Oscar Wilde. Why did Wilde trigger his own doom by suing his nemesis Lord Queensbury for libel? What did he fail to understand about how he would come across in a courtroom? And how did the persecution of Wilde and his gay lifestyle reveal the hidden terrors of late Victorian England and its high society, up to and including the prime minister?

Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s latest conversation with Robert Saunders in which they talk about the past, present and future of the politics of unemployment. Can Labour ever again be the party of labour? Whose work is it anyway? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Tickets are now available for our autumn film season at the Regent Street Cinema in London, starting on 5th September with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope followed by a live recording of PPF with special guests Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, aka the best-selling husband-and-wife crime-writing duo Nicci French. For tickets and details on all the films https://www.ppfideas.com/events

Next time in Politics on Trial: Dreyfus vs the Conspiracy Theory
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Politics on Trial: Oscar Wilde vs the Philistines

Today’s episode is the first in a new strand with the historian Robert Saunders looking at significant political anniversaries and their meaning for today. Summer 2025 is 70 years since the UK recorded its lowest ever unemployment rate in peacetime: just 1% (or 215,800 people) in July 1955. David and Robert explore the history of unemployment: how it’s been measured, what it means, why it matters and when it changes the course of political history. From Victorian trade unionism to the Thatcher revolution: who gets to decide on the value of work?

Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of this conversation taking the story from the 1980s to the present, via New Labour, the financial crisis of 2008 and Covid. How has the meaning of work changed over that period? How has it got mixed up with the politics of immigration? And is the Labour Party still the party of labour? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

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Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Whatever Happened to Unemployment?

For today’s episode in Politics on Trial it’s two trials for the price of one, which between them changed the course of British and Irish history. In 1889 the leading Irish politician Charles Parnell was cleared of any involvement in the notorious Phoenix Park murders by Irish republican terrorists seven years earlier. In 1890 Parnell was found to be the adulterer in a divorce case involving his mistress and her husband. That scandal destroyed him, permanently split the campaign for Irish self-government and upended Liberal politics in Britain. How did Parnell come to have such a hold on British and Irish politics? Why could he survive accusations of terrorism but not of adultery? And what does his fate reveal about the high-wire politics of a highly decorous and extremely dangerous age?

For all the information about our autumn season of screenings and live recordings, 'Films of Ideas', and to book tickets, go to our website: https://www.ppfideas.com/events

Next Time: Now and Then w/Robert Saunders: Whatever Happened to Full Employment?
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Politics on Trial: Charles Parnell vs the English

Today’s political trial is one of the most notorious in American history: eight men charged with and convicted of murder in 1886 for a terrorist outrage that none of them committed. A bomb had been thrown at the police during a workers’ rally in Chicago but this trial was not about punishing the person who threw it. Rather it was a witch hunt of the men and the movement that were thought to have inspired it. Anarchism was put on trial and condemned in the Haymarket case. Who promoted and who resisted the invasion of paranoia and conspiracy theories into an American courtroom? And was it anarchists or was it the forces of law and order that were ultimately responsible for Chicago’s descent into violence and retribution?

For all the information about our autumn season of screenings and live recordings, 'Films of Ideas', and to book tickets, go to our website: https://www.ppfideas.com/events

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Politics on Trial: The Haymarket Eight vs the Police

Today’s great political trial concerns the prosecution and execution of John Brown in 1859 for his raid on Harper’s Ferry in the attempt to free America’s slaves, an event that helped precipitate the American Civil War. It was also a trial that produced three of the greatest speeches in American history: by Brown himself, by Henry Thoreau and by Frederick Douglass, which between them constitute an indictment of slavery for the ages. How did one man’s unilateral declaration of war convulse an entire nation? And how did his trial confirm what was becoming increasingly clear: that a house divided against itself cannot stand?

For all the information about our autumn season of screenings and live recordings, 'Films of Ideas', and to book tickets, go to our website: https://www.ppfideas.com/events

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Politics on Trial: John Brown vs Slavery

For today’s epic political trial, David talks to American historian and PPF regular Gary Gerstle about the treason trial of Aaron Burr in 1807. Why was Burr not put on trial for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel? Was Burr really planning to invade Mexico or was it a set-up? Why was President Thomas Jefferson so determined to bring Burr down? Why was Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Marshall so determined to prevent that from happening? And why did being acquitted of treason still end Burr’s career once and for all?

For all the information about our autumn season of screenings and live recordings, 'Films of Ideas', and to book tickets, go to our website: https://www.ppfideas.com/events

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Politics on Trial: Aaron Burr vs the Constitution

Today’s epoch-making political trial concerns the interrogation, conviction and execution of Louis XVI at the heart of the French Revolution in 1792-3. For many at the time and since this event had powerful echoes of the trial and execution of Charles I - but in fact the trial of Louis was very different in almost every way. Why and how did Louis choose to defend himself? Was he condemned because he was a king or because he was no longer a king? Was the decision to send him to the guillotine really only decided by one vote out of more than seven hundred? And who won in the court of history?

Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s conversation with Alexander Douglas about the pitfalls of the search for identity, from Silicon Valley to ‘impostor syndrome’. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

For all the information about our autumn season of screenings and live recordings, 'Films of Ideas', and to book tickets, go to our website: https://www.ppfideas.com/events

Next time in Politics on Trial: Aaron Burr vs the Constitution w/Gary Gerstle
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Politics on Trial: Louis XVI vs the People

To start our new instalment of episodes about the most consequential political trials in history David explores the trial of the eighteenth century: the impeachment of Warren Hastings that ran in the British parliament from 1788-95. Hastings had been Governor-General of Bengal, controlling much of India for Britain and for the East India Company and making himself and many others rich in the process. So why did his former allies turn on him? Why did his trial last for seven years? Why did it end up as a festival of hypocrisy and madness? And why would its closest twenty-first century parallel be the impeachment of Elon Musk?

Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s conversation with Alexander Douglas in which they talk about how Silicon Valley took a philosophical concept of identity and turned it into a commodity to be marketed. Plus, how should we think about ‘impostor syndrome’? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

For all the information about our autumn season of screenings and live recordings, 'Films of Ideas', and to book tickets, go to our website: https://www.ppfideas.com/events

Next time in Politics on Trial: Louis XVI vs the People

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Politics on Trial: Warren Hastings vs the British Empire

The penultimate episode in our fictions series is about Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife (2008), which re-imagines the life of First Lady Laura Bush. One of the great novels about the intimacy of power and the accidents of politics, it sticks to the historical record while radically retelling it. What does the standard version leave out about the Bush presidency? How does an ordinary life become an extraordinary one? And where is the line between fact and fiction?
Sign up now to PPF+ to get all our bonus episodes along with ad-free listening: coming soon for PPF+ subscribers Robert Saunders on his favourite political novel plus a special episode on Evita: www.ppfideas.com
Next time: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton
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The Great Political Fictions: American Wife

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