The History of Bad Ideas: The Marketplace of Ideas

Today’s bad idea is a pervasive political myth: the notion that what really matters at election time is political leadership. David talks to political scientist Jane Green about why leaders are less i...

22 Jul 0s

David talks to historian and broadcaster Greg Jenner about the surprising history of the idea of celebrity, from Roman generals to 18th-century child stars to contemporary pop culture icons. How is ce...

19 Jul 1h 8min

Today’s episode is about a bad idea with a very recent history: David talks to political historian David Klemperer about the dangers of deliverism. When did the view that delivering for the voters is ...

15 Jul 56min

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...

12 Jul 56min

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 diagno...

8 Jul 58min

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 u...

5 Jul 58min

Today’s episode is the first of two with writer and political scientist Ivan Krastev exploring what has happened to our ideas of the future. When did thinking about the future become the way we define...

1 Jul 1h 1min

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about Mark Romanek’s 2010 film of Kazuo...

28 Jun 56min