Orwell’s War: Frozen In Time (1942-43)

Past Present Future

D&HR Media Ltd

Politics, News, Philosophy, Society & Culture, History

4.7 • 747 Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s episode in our series about how George Orwell tried – and failed – to make sense of WW2 looks at his response to the vast lurches of fortune from 1942-43 as Hitler’s plans for world domination started to fall apart. Why was Orwell convinced that the summer of 1942 was the last chance for revolution? What persuaded him that Stafford Cripps was the man of the hour? How did his hopes fall apart in 1943? And where did the ideas for 1984 first come from? Out tomorrow on PPF+: the final episode in this series exploring how Orwell tried to make sense of the end of the war, from a Labour election victory he didn’t see coming to a new ‘cold war’ that he anticipated before anyone else. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next time – PPF+: Some Of What You’ve Been Missing (Taster 3) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:28.6	Hello, my name's David Rundsman and this is past-present future, the History of Ideas
1:43.7	podcast.
1:47.5	This is part three of our series called Orwell's War about how George Orwell tried to make sense of the Second World War as it was
1:54.0	happening. And today I'm going to be talking about his responses to events that took place in
1:59.0	1942 and 1943. These were the years for Orwell of
	...

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