267 | Twilight of Democracy

in

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

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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.