Past Present Future

David Runciman

ppfideas@gmail.com

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Booking Overview

This is a history-of-ideas interview podcast focused on politics, philosophy, culture, technology, and the origins and consequences of influential ideas, typically featuring historians, writers, scientists, and other public intellectuals. Credible pitches include published scholars, authors, political thinkers, cultural commentators, and researchers with distinctive expertise and substantial ideas to discuss; booking difficulty is high because guests generally have established public profiles and significant intellectual or academic credentials.

Metrics

Episodes: 322

Frequency: Multiple_weekly

Rating: 4.8/5.0

Estimated listeners: 10k-100k

Gender skew: Unknown

Location: United Kingdom

Contact Information

ppfideas@gmail.com

For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.

Host

David Runciman - David Runciman is a political theorist, author, and broadcaster known for his work on contemporary politics and the history of political ideas. He is also the host and creator of Talking Politics.

Booking Intelligence

Booking Requirements

high
Typical Credentials:  
Established historians, political scientists, philosophers, novelists, writers, scientists, broadcasters, and other public intellectuals with recognized expertise in the history or consequences of important ideas.
Required Achievements:  
Published books or significant scholarly work, Academic leadership or distinguished research, Established public commentary or broadcasting, Recognized expertise in politics, philosophy, history, culture, or technology

Recent Guest Discussions

Alec Ryrie - The Seductions And Pitfalls Of Narrative History, Historical Interpretation, And The Way Narratives Shape Understanding Of Contemporary Events.

Helen Lewis - The History Of Hysteria, Its Connections To Gender And Mental Illness, And The Persistence Of Explanatory Labels For Collective Behavior.

Ivan Krastev - Changing Ideas Of The Future, Demographic Aging, Artificial Intelligence, Utopian And Dystopian Expectations, And End-of-the-world Scenarios.

Recent Topics

Intellectual History, Politics, Philosophy, Technology

Episodes

Here's the recent few episodes on
Past Present Future
:

The History of Bad Ideas: Narrative History

July 12, 2026

Today’s bad idea is a way of doing history: David talks to historian Alec Ryrie about the seductions and pitfalls of narrative history. Why do we need more Herodotus and less Thucydides? What makes so many historians believe that the meaning of a story is determined by its end? How does narrative history distort our understanding of contemporary events? And how can podcasts do it better? Out tomorrow on PPF+ a bonus episode to accompany this series: David talks about what’s wrong with the id...

The History of Bad Ideas: Hysteria

July 08, 2026

For the first in a new set of episodes about bad ideas with interesting histories David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about hysteria, an ancient idea that became a very modern diagnosis. Why was hysteria associated with both madness and saintliness? How did Charcot and then Freud use hysteria to rationalise otherwise baffling female behaviour? What happens when group hysteria takes hold? And why do we still find it so hard to do without these kinds of labels? You can find o...

Where Are We Going? The Future of the Future

July 05, 2026

In the second part of their conversation about what has happened to our ideas of the future David and Ivan Krastev explore where the future is going next. Why do our expectations of what comes after us shift as we live longer and our societies age? What changes in the human understanding of the future as humans get displaced by machines? And where might we end up if we continue to fixate on end-of-the-world scenarios? From future utopias to future dystopias and all that lies between. You can...

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