TrueSciPhi

Podcast Profile: Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS

Site • RSS • Apple Podcasts
27 episodes
2020 to 2021
Median: 46 minutes
Collections: Philosophy • SciPhi-Adjacent

Description (podcaster-provided):

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, from revolution to lock down. Plus, he talks about the crises – revolutions, wars, depressions, pandemics – that generated these new ways of political thinking. From the team that brought you Talking Politics: a history of ideas to help make sense of what’s happening today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):

➤ Political philosophy through key thinkers • State, sovereignty, liberty • Democracy, leadership, liberalism • Justice, inequality, markets • Revolution, class, colonialism, slavery • Feminism, patriarchy, sexual politics • Morality, hypocrisy • Technology, machines, utopia/dystopia • Crises shaping political ideas

This podcast is a guided tour through major works in the history of political thought, using influential books and essays to explain how modern political ideas were formed and why they continue to shape public life. Each instalment centers on a particular thinker, placing a key text in its historical setting and unpacking the concepts that have endured—such as the modern state, sovereignty, liberty, democracy, justice, leadership, revolution, and utopia. The discussions frequently connect these ideas to the pressures that produced them, including civil war, world war, economic upheaval, colonial rule, and other moments of political crisis.

Across the series, recurring questions include what makes political authority legitimate, how much power states should have, and what citizens can reasonably expect from democratic government. Competing accounts of freedom and equality appear alongside debates about markets, planning, and the limits of liberalism. The podcast also examines how moral and psychological assumptions influence political life, including arguments about cruelty, hypocrisy, and the origins of moral judgement.

A substantial theme is power as experienced through domination and exclusion. The podcast explores slavery, colonialism, patriarchy, and the construction of “the other,” treating these not only as historical realities but as forces that helped generate modern theories of rights, emancipation, and resistance. Alongside this are accounts of revolutionary politics and its dilemmas, including the tension between liberation and coercion.

Technology and “machine” politics form another thread, from early reflections on industrial society to anxieties about calculation, surveillance, computers, and intelligent machines. Throughout, the approach is explanatory and text-based, often highlighting how later thinkers respond to earlier ones and how ideas migrate into contemporary political debate. Occasional question-and-answer episodes address how the series is put together and draw connections among its themes.

Episodes: