Podcasts by Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS

History of Ideas Q and A from 2021-05-08T23:00

A special episode in which David answers some of the audience's questions about the second series of History of Ideas. From how he chooses which writers and works to talk about, to whether Boris Jo...

Shklar on Hypocrisy from 2021-04-20T07:50

Judith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices (1984) made the case that the worst of all the vices is cruelty. But that meant we needed to be more tolerant of some other common human failings, in...

Nozick on Utopia from 2021-04-13T07:50

Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) was designed as a rebuttal to Rawls but it was so much more than that. It offered a defence of the minimal state that appealed to t...

Rawls on Justice from 2021-04-06T07:50

John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) changed the face of modern political philosophy by reinventing the question of what constitutes fairness. From ‘the veil of ignorance’ to ‘r...

De Beauvoir on the Other from 2021-03-30T07:50

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) is one of the founding texts of modern feminism and one of the most important books of the twentieth century. It covers everything from a...

Schumpeter on Democracy from 2021-03-23T08:50

Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) contains a famous, and minimal, definition of democracy as the competition between political elites to sell themselves to ...

Schmitt on Friend vs Enemy from 2021-03-16T08:50

Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political (1932) has been hugely influential on the left as well as the right of political debate despite the fact that its author joined the ...

Luxemburg on Revolution from 2021-03-09T08:45:11

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 w...

Nietzsche on Morality from 2021-03-02T08:45

Friedrich Nietzsche’s masterpiece The Genealogy of Morality (1887) sets out to explain where ideas of good and evil come from and why they have left human beings worse off. He traces their origi...

Butler on Machines from 2021-02-23T08:45:35

Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (1872) is a strange and unsettling book about a world turned upside down. Usually classified as utopian or dystopian fiction, it also contains an eerie prophecy abou...

Douglass on Slavery from 2021-02-16T08:40:48

My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) by the former slave Frederick Douglass was the second of his three autobiographies and the one that contained his most radical ideas. In this episode David ...

Bentham on Pleasure from 2021-02-09T08:30

Jeremy Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation is a definitive early statement of the basis of utilitarianism: how do we achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest...

Rousseau on Inequality from 2021-02-02T08:30

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (also known as the Second Discourse) tells the story of all human history to answer one simple question: how did we end up in such an unequal worl...

Q & A with David from 2020-07-03T07:50

We got lots and lots of excellent questions from listeners about the themes and ideas in this series of talks. In this extra episode

David will do his best to answer some of them, fro...

Fukuyama on History from 2020-05-25T07:50

Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History (1992) became associated with the triumph of liberal democracy at the end of the twentieth century. But was Fukuyama really a triumphalist? David ...

MacKinnon on Patriarchy from 2020-05-22T07:45

Catharine MacKinnon’s Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989) challenges two dominant ways of thinking about politics: liberalism, which wants to protect us from the power of the state, and...

Fanon on Colonialism from 2020-05-18T08:00

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 cha...

Arendt on Action from 2020-05-15T08:00

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 techn...

Hayek on the Market from 2020-05-11T10:04:49

Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944) was written during the Second World War but Hayek was really worried about what would come next. He feared that wartime planning would ...

Weber on Leadership from 2020-05-08T08:00

Max Weber’s The Profession and Vocation of Politics (1919) was a lecture that became one of the defining texts of twentieth century political thought. In it, Weber explores the perils and p...

Gandhi on self-rule from 2020-05-04T08:00

Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1909) was a defining text of the movement for Indian independence from British colonial rule. It also articulated a radical new idea of pol...

Marx and Engels on Revolution from 2020-05-01T08:00

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 ...

Tocqueville on Democracy from 2020-04-30T08:00

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 discu...

Constant on Liberty from 2020-04-29T08:00

Benjamin Constant’s ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared to the Liberty of the Moderns’ (1819) examines what it means to be free in the modern world. Are we at liberty to follow our hearts...

Wollstonecraft on Sexual Politics from 2020-04-28T08:00

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the most remarkable books in the history of ideas. A classic of early feminism, it uses what’s wrong wit...

Hobbes on the State from 2020-04-27T08:00

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) reimagined how we could do politics. It redefined many of the ideas that continue to shape modern politics: representation, sovereignty, the state....

Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS from 2020-04-20T09:18:14

A short trailer to introduce a new series of talks by David Runciman. In a series of twelve podcasts, he explores some of the most important thinkers and prominent ideas lying behind modern politic...