Hello, this is David Ronsman and I want to tell you about a new series that we're launching

through talking politics. It's called Talking Politics, History of Ideas. And in it, I'm

going to be talking about some of the most important thinkers and some of the most prominent

ideas lying behind modern politics. From Hobbes to Gandhi, from democracy to patriarchy,

from revolution to lockdown and back again. We've been wanting to do this for quite a

while and with schools and universities out and so many people stuck at home, the moment

seems right. It's a chance to explore in much more detail some of the history behind many

of the themes that we often touch on in talking politics. The trade-off between liberty and

security, the role of the state and the role of the market, the relationship between democracy

and technology, the nature of political leadership. Many of these ideas come out of moments of

crisis and I'll be discussing that too. From the English Civil War to the French Revolution,

from the Russian Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall, almost all of them have something

to say about the crisis that we're living through now. Each episode will be about one

writer and one piece of writing, starting with Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan, which was published

in 1651. And along the way we'll be taking Mary Wilson Kraft and Karl Marx, Max Weber

and Hannah Arendt, Franz Fanon and Francis Fukuyama, 12 episodes in all. The first two

will be available on our regular stream, talking politics. But if you want to get them all, you'll

need to subscribe to Talking Politics, History of Ideas. And you can do that wherever you get your podcasts.

We do hope you'll join us for this. Please subscribe to Talking Politics, History of Ideas.

Brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books.