The final part of our series on 1848 looks at the fight back: how did the ruling classes keep their power and at what cost? How did Britain avoid a revolution? Was Napoleon III the end of the revolution or an extension of it? Did revolution turn into reform or reaction? And what is the legacy of 1848 in the politics of today?

In this bonus episode David discusses how arguments from the distant past about America and monarchy are being weaponised in the age of Trump 2.0. Who seriously thinks in 2025 that what the US needs is a king? Where do these ideas come from? What do they get right and what do they get wrong about executive power in the era of democratic politics? And what's this got to do with the UK?

In this bonus episode David talks to historian Alec Ryrie about another key figure of the Reformation: Jean Calvin. Who was Calvin and what made Calvinism such a powerful theological and political movement? Does it deserve its reputation for ruthless discipline and puritan morality? How has its influence been felt from revolutionary America to apartheid South Africa?

This bonus episode is the second part of David’s conversation with philosopher Agnes Callard about Socrates and the transformative potential of the Socratic method. In it they discuss politics and how to depoliticise it; AI and how to deal with it; death and how to face it; and parties and how to avoid them.

The final bonus episode to accompany this political films series also happens to be David’s favourite political film (if favourite means comfort-viewing!): Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop (2009). A biting satire of British and American politics in the run-up to the Iraq war, it’s also hilarious, affectionate, and very, very sweary. No swearing in this episode, but plenty of talk about what makes it so funny. Plus: how does this version of New Labour politics c.2003 match up to the real thing?

The second of our two bonus episodes on Claude Lanzmann’s monumental Shoah (1985) explores the testimony of those who saw what was happening in Treblinka, Auschwitz and the Warsaw Ghetto. How did they bear it? How did they live to tell the tale? When did the certainty of death change the calculus of resistance? And what does this film’s story-telling succeed in preserving when all else is lost?