268 | Revisiting Yuval Harari

This week we go back to the first ever interview we recorded for Talking Politics, when David talked to Yuval Noah Harari in 2016 about his book Homo Deus. That conversation touched on many of the themes that we've kept coming back to in the four years since: the power of the big technology companies; the vulnerability of democracy; the deep uncertainty we all feel about the future. David reflects on what difference those four years have made to how we think about these questions now.

267 | Twilight of Democracy

David talks to the writer Anne Applebaum about her highly personal new book, which charts the last twenty years of broken friendships and democratic failure.  We start in Poland with the story of what happened to the high hopes for Polish democracy, including what we've learned from this week's presidential election.  But we also take in Trump and Brexit, Hungary and Spain. What explains the prevalence of conspiracy theories in contemporary politics? Why are so many conservatives drawn to the politics of despair?  Is history really circular?  And is democracy doomed?

266 | Helen's History of Ideas

David talks with Helen to get her take on the history of ideas - both what's there and what's missing.  Why start with Hobbes?  What can we learn from the Federalist Papers?  Where's Nietzsche?  Plus we talk about whether understanding where political ideas come from is liberating or limiting and we ask how many of them were just rationalisations for power.