Today’s episode explores some very big picture history: David talks to palaeontologist and science writer Henry Gee about the story of the human species from origin to peak to inevitable decline. When and how did Homo sapiens see off the competition from its rivals in the human and animal world? Why did that point mark the start of an inexorable drift towards extinction? In what ways are our strengths as a species also our fatal weaknesses? And how near are we to the end?
Part two of this conversation, which takes the story of human species from the hunter-gatherer period to the present and beyond to explore how long we have left, is available tomorrow on PPF+. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Henry Gee’s The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire is available wherever you get your books https://bit.ly/4pshODe
Read more by David about depopulation and human extinction in the current issue of the London Review of Books https://bit.ly/43FEwiO
There are still a few tickets remaining for the next film in our autumn 'Films of Ideas' season at the Regent Street Cinema in London: join us on Friday 28th November for a screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind followed by a live recording of PPF with special guest Beeban Kidron https://bit.ly/4a78KyZ
Next time – Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Thatcher @100
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Trump-like Leadership in German History w/Chris Clark: Part 2 – Chancellor, Tyrant, Emperor?
Part two of David’s conversation with historian Chris Clark asks whether the best historical insights into Trump-like leadership come from comparison with kings or commoners, democrats or dictators. Does Trump’s leadership style share much if anything with an epoch-making politician like Bismarck? Should Trump’s public persona be understood as standing outside the norm of presidential politics or as quintessentially American? And what can we learn from a close reading of his magnum opus, The Art of the Deal?
Next time: The Rise and Fall of Homo sapiens
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Trump-like Leadership in German History w/Chris Clark: Part 1 – Kaiser Wilhelm II?
Today’s episode is the first of a two-part conversation with historian Chris Clark exploring how German history might help us understand Trump-like leadership, but not through looking at the Nazi period. Instead, David and Chris explore the character and leadership style of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a monarch with many Trumpian qualities. Was Wilhelm a populist or an elitist? Did he know what he was doing and what he was saying? Or was he out of his depth? Plus, how did his maverick and mercurial behaviour impact on those around him trying to run the country - and how did it help lead his country to ruin?
Next time on Trump-like leadership in German History: Chancellor, Tyrant, Emperor?
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Politics on Trial: France on Trial Part 2 – Vichy vs the Jews
Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian Julian Jackson about the case of Marshal Pétain and the crimes of the Vichy regime. Did Pétain really play a ‘double game’ in which he tried to deceive the Nazis? How then to explain the vicious antisemitism of the Vichy regime? Why did the fate of France’s Jews not get more attention at Pétain’s trial? And how does the case of Pétain and the question of Vichy still resonate in French politics today?
Julian Jackson’s France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain is available wherever you get your books https://bit.ly/4oTHcRP
Next Time: Chris Clark on Trump-like leaders from German history (and it’s not the one you think!)
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Politics on Trial: France on Trial – Pétain vs De Gaulle
Today’s episode is the first of two on the extraordinary treason trial of Marshal Pétain in the summer of 1945 that ended up putting wartime France in the dock. David talks to historian of modern France Julian Jackson about how Pétain found himself so quickly charged with treason and who was judging him. What was the essence of Pétain’s crime? Conspiracy? Surrender? Collaboration? Complicity in genocide? And what on earth was his defence?
Julian Jackson’s France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain is available wherever you get your books https://bit.ly/4oTHcRP
Available now on PPF+: our second episode on the Moscow Show Trials in which David and Edward Acton discuss the 1938 trial of Nikolai Bukharin, the most celebrated defendant of them all, whose case inspired some of the world’s great political literature. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ today https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time in Politics on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain Part 2
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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 Wednesday and Sunday.