Past Present Future

Today’s trial is one of the most notorious in history but also one of the most misremembered. Galileo’s epic confrontation with the Catholic Church over the question of whether the earth moves round t...

8 Jun 20251h 4min

Today’s episode is about a pivotal event in British history that took place exactly 50 years ago: the 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Community. David talks to historian Robert...

5 Jun 20251h

In today’s episode an extraordinary political trial that culminated in the execution of one queen at the behest of another: Mary Queen of Scots, convicted of treason in 1586 and beheaded in 1587. But ...

1 Jun 202554min

In today’s episode another trial that forms the basis for great drama: the case of Thomas More, tried and executed in 1535, events dramatised by Robert Bolt in A Man for All Seasons and Hilary Mantel ...

29 Mai 202557min

Today’s political trial took place in 1431 though it was still being re-litigated right through to the twentieth century: the case of Joan of Arc, charged with heresy by the Church and burned at the s...

25 Mai 20251h

The first political trial in our new series is the one that set the template for all the others: the trial of Socrates in Athens in 399 BCE, which ended with a death sentence for the philosopher and a...

22 Mai 202553min

To introduce our new series about historic political trials – from Socrates to Marine Le Pen – David explores what makes political confrontations in a court of law so fascinating and so revealing. Why...

18 Mai 202551min

For the final episode in this series David talks to the leading economist Dani Rodrik about the case he made in the early 2000s that globalisation was unsustainable in its current form. How does he th...

15 Mai 202553min