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To conclude this part of our revolutionary ideas series, we explore the overlapping lives and thinking of two emblematic twentieth-century revolutionaries: Lenin and Trotsky. David talks to historian of Russia Edward Acton about what inspired them, what connected them and what divided them. How were they radicalised? How did they interpret the failure of the 1905 revolution? How did they make the 1917 revolution happen?
Available from Saturday on PPF+: Lenin and Trotsky part 2, taking the story on from 1917 to explore civil war, the rise of Stalin and the re-invention of Trotskyism. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Out tomorrow a new edition of our free fortnightly newsletter with links, clips and guides to all our recent episodes. Join our mailing list https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time the start of a new series: The History of Globalisation
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Today’s episode is the second of our two recent live recordings of PPF, this one in front of an audience at the Bath Curious Minds Festival. David talks to historian Robert Saunders about the life of Winston Churchill and all its twists and turns of fortune: from disgrace in WWI, economic disaster in the 1920s, wilderness in the 1930s, through to redemption in 1945 and rejection by the voters in the same year. How to make sense of it all? Is there a thread that connects the ups and downs? Has there ever – anywhere – been another political life like it?
Out now on PPF+: David discusses the influence of Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto (1909) – from cars to cod liver oil, from fascism to techno-optimism, from the madness of pre-WWI Europe to the craziness of Silicon Valley today. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: The History of Revolutionary Ideas: Lenin and Trotsky
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Our third Parisian revolution is another explosive night in the theatre, this time in the world of dance. David talks to Dominic Dromgoole about Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which provoked absolute outrage when it premiered in 1913. Is that what its impresario Diaghilev wanted? How did Nijinsky cope? Did the response foreshadow the trauma to come in 1914? And how did the set designer Roerich end up playing a part in American presidential history?
Dominic Dromgoole’s Astonish Me! First Nights that Changed the World is available wherever you get your books https://profilebooks.com/work/astonish-me/
Out this weekend: a new bonus episode on PPF+ exploring the far-reaching impact of Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto (1909), from pre-WWI Europe to Silicon Valley. Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: PPF Live: Churchill – The Politician With Nine Lives
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Today’s Parisian revolution is a theatrical performance that produced a riot. David talks to theatre director Dominic Dromgoole about Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1896), which only ran for a couple of nights but left an indelible mark on the culture of the age and has resonated ever since. Why did a play effectively written by children provoke such a storm among the adults? What made it it blow the mind of W. B. Yeats who was in the audience? How can something so bad be so liberating?
Next time: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
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Today’s episode is the first of three this week with the theatre director and writer Dominic Dromgoole, exploring revolutionary events in the world of art and theatre, starting with the opening of the Salon des Refusés in Paris in May 1863. How did the Emperor Napoleon end up sponsoring such a counter-cultural event? Why did it provoke such public outrage and astonishment? And in what ways did Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe revolutionise what was possible in the creation and consumption of modern art?
A new edition of our newsletter is out now with guides to the events of the Paris Commune and much more. Sign up to get it every fortnight https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: Ubu Roi w/Dominic Dromgoole
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Today the first of four episodes about Parisian revolutions. We start with the definitive nineteenth-century revolutionary and his definitive revolution: David talks to historian Bruno Leipold about why Karl Marx thought the Paris Commune in 1871 was the model of a workers' uprising and provided a vision of the socialist future. How had the Communards reinvented democracy? Was this a social, an economic or a political revolution? And how did Marx reconcile himself to its bloody failure?
Bruno Leipold’s intellectual biography of Marx and Marxism Citizen Marx is available now https://bit.ly/4i8Gmga
A new edition of our free fortnightly newsletter is out tomorrow with guides to the events of the Paris Commune and much more. Sign up now https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: Salon des Refusés w/Dominic Dromgoole
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Today’s revolutionary idea is one with a long history, not all of it revolutionary: David talks to the historian Fara Dabhoiwala about the idea of free speech. When did free speech first get articulated as a fundamental right? How has that right been used and abused, from the eighteenth century to the present? And what changed in the history of the idea of free speech with the publication of J. S. Mill’s On Liberty in 1859?
Fara Dabhoiwala’s What Is Free Speech? is available now https://bit.ly/4jgcvDt
Next time: Marx and the Paris Commune w/Bruno Leipold
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We take a brief break from revolutionary ideas for a special live episode of PPF recorded in front of an audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London. David talks to writer and journalist Helen Lewis about Network (1976), a film still best remembered for its catchphrase: ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Just how prophetic is that cry of rage in the age of Trump? What does the film say about the continuing power of television in the era of social media? And who or what does it remind us of: Ye, Tucker Carlson, Russell Brand, WWE wrestling… or is it about something else entirely?
Out now on PPF+: the second part of David’s conversation with Adam Rutherford about Darwin and the most revolutionary idea of them all. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: J. S. Mill and Free Speech w/Fara Dabhoiwala
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David talks to geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about the book that fundamentally altered our understanding of just about everything: Darwin’s On The Origin of Species (1859). What made the idea of natural selection so different from the theories of evolution that preceded it? How did Darwin arrive at it? What changed when he published his theory and why is it, in so many ways, the most revolutionary idea of them all?
Out tomorrow on PPF+ Darwin Part 2: Adam Rutherford explores how Darwin’s ideas evolved after 1859 and how the revolution in thinking that he started has continued to this day. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: PPF Live recorded at the Regent Street Cinema: Network w/Helen Lewis
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Today’s revolutionary ideas come from China: David talks to historian Julia Lovell about the Taiping Revolution, another massive mid-19th-century upheaval that nearly overturned the established order. How did Christianity inspire an uprising against the Qing dynasty? Was it a revolution or a civil war? What was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom? And where does this cataclysmic event fit into China’s 20th-century revolutionary history?
Out now: a bonus episode on 1848 with Chris Clark looking at the counter-revolution – how did the ruling regimes of Europe fight back? To get this and a year’s worth of bonus episodes sign up to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Available tomorrow: the latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter with clips, guides, further reading and much more. Sign up now https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: Darwin w/Adam Rutherford
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In our second of three episodes on the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 David and Chris Clark explore the forces demanding radical change. What was ‘the Social Question’ and who was asking it? Where did the violence that erupted in the summer of 1848 come from? What, if anything did it achieve? And who paid the price?
Out tomorrow: a final bonus episode on 1848 looking at the counter-revolution: how did the ruling regimes of Europe fight back? To get this and a year’s worth of bonus episodes sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: The Taiping Revolution w/Julia Lovell
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In the first of three episodes about the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848 David is joined by historian Chris Clark to explore the ideas behind this continental upheaval. We start with the ‘Liberal Revolution’: Who were the liberals and what had turned them into revolutionaries? How did the original French Revolution overshadow their hopes and fears? Were parliaments and constitutions capable of sustaining revolutionary fervour? And did the liberals of 1848 realise what they had unleashed?
Come to see PPF Live at the Bath Curious Minds Festival: join us on Saturday March 29th to hear David in conversation with Robert Saunders about the legacy of Winston Churchill: The Politician with Nine Lives https://bit.ly/42GPp3X
Next time: 1848: The Radical Revolution w/Chris Clark
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Today’s revolutionary idea is something a bit different: David talks to statistician David Spiegelhalter about how an eighteenth-century theory of probability emerged from relative obscurity in the twentieth century to reconfigure our understanding of the relationship between past, present and future. What was Thomas Bayes’s original idea about doing probability in reverse: from effect to cause? What happened when this way of thinking passed through the vortex of the French Revolution? How has it come to lie behind recent innovations in political polling, AI, self-driving cars, medical research and so much more? Why does it remain controversial to this day?
The latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter is available: to get it in your inbox sign up now https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletter
Next time: 1848: The Liberal Revolution w/Chris Clark
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Today’s episode is about a very different revolution from any we’ve discussed so far: David talks to historian Hank Gonzalez about the Haitian Revolution, which for the first time in history saw a slave revolt result in an independent free state. How did the Haitian Revolution intersect with the American and French Revolutions that preceded it? Why were European powers unable to reverse it despite massive military intervention? What is its legacy for the state of Haiti today?
Tickets are still available for PPF Live at the Bath Curious Minds Festival: join us on Saturday 29th March to hear David in conversation with Robert Saunders about the legacy of Winston Churchill: The Politician with Nine Lives https://bit.ly/42GPp3X
Out tomorrow the latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter: to get it in your inbox sign up now https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: The Bayesian revolution w/David Spiegelhalter
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For our third episode on the ideas behind the French Revolution, David talks to Richard Whatmore about the ubiquitous Thomas Paine, the Englishman who championed revolutionary politics around the world. How did Paine come to see France as the locus of all his revolutionary hopes? How were those hopes ultimately disappointed? And what happened to Paine’s vision of the Rights of Man?
Out now on PPF+: a special bonus episode on King Donald The First. David explores the arguments being made in 2025 for the restoration of monarchy in America. Who’s making them and why? What on earth are they thinking? Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: Slave uprising: the Haitian Revolution
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For our second episode on the people and ideas behind the French Revolution David talks to historian and biographer Ruth Scurr about the man who came to embody the revolution in all its radicalism and all its terror: Maximilien Robespierre. Who was he and how did he rise so fast once the upheaval was underway? How did he harness the power of the Jacobin Club? How did he marshal the violence of the streets? What did he believe in? And what made him think it was possible to reconcile virtue with terror?
Out now: a special bonus episode for PPF+ subscribers on King Donald The First: David explores the arguments being made in 2025 for the restoration of monarchy in America. Who’s making them and why? What on earth are they thinking? Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: French Revolution 3: Paine
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In the first of three episodes about the people and ideas behind the French Revolution, David talks to Lucia Rubinelli about the man who helped kickstart it all: the Abbé Sieyès. How did an obscure cleric galvanise a nation? What did he mean by the Third Estate and why did he think it was everything? What went wrong with his idea of a new constitutional order for France? And what happened when Sieyès encountered Napoleon?
Out now on PPF+: a special bonus episode on King Donald The First. David explores the arguments being made in 2025 for the restoration of monarchy in America. Who’s making them and why? What on earth are they thinking? Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Next time: French Revolution 2: Robespierre
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In the second of our two episodes about the American Revolution David talks to historian Eric Nelson about the ideas that shaped the US Constitution. Was the office of President a victory for the people who still wanted a king or for those who never wanted one again? What was old and what was new about the idea of the separation of powers? What really divided the Federalists and the Antifederalists? And how are these arguments still being played out in the early days of Trump 2.0?
Out tomorrow: a special bonus episode for PPF+ subscribers on King Donald The First: David explores the arguments being made in 2025 for the restoration of monarchy in America. Who’s making them and why? What on earth are they thinking? Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
Also sign up now for the latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter out tomorrow https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters
Next time: French Revolution 1: Sieyes
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Today it’s the first of two episodes about one of the most significant revolutions of all: the American Revolution. David talks to historian Eric Nelson about the ideas behind America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776. How did a fight with the British parliament become a repudiation of the British king? What turned royalists into republicans? What kind of republic did they think they were building? And whose consent was going to be needed to build it?
Next time: American Revolution 2: The Constitution
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Today’s episode is about a revolution that started 250 years ago and is still going on (in the form of the digital revolution): the Industrial Revolution. David talks to economic historian Alexis Litvine about how new ways of making things changed human understanding of the world around us. Did the Industrial Revolution invent the idea of progress? Did it revolutionise the concept of nature? Did it upend the way we think about time? And what was the cost?
Tickets are available for PPF Live at the Bath Curious Minds Festival: on Saturday 29th March David will be in conversation with Robert Saunders about the legacy of Winston Churchill: The Politician with Nine Lives https://bit.ly/42GPp3X
Next time: American Revolution: The Declaration of Independence
Past Present Future is part of the Airwave Podcast Network
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