David Runciman

David Walter Runciman FBA (born 1 March 1967) is an English academic who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, where he is Professor of Politics and a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. From October 2014 to October 2018, he was also Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies.

Family and early life

Runciman was born in St John's Wood, North London, England, and grew up there. His father, Garry Runciman, Viscount Runciman, is a political scientist and academic and his mother, Ruth Runciman, is former chair of the UK Mental Health Commission, a founder of the Prison Reform Trust and former chair of the National Aids Trust. His father, mother, and paternal grandfather and great-grandfather all attended Cambridge. He was educated at Eton College, an all-boys public school in Berkshire, where he won the Newcastle Scholarship. He went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Runciman is the great-nephew of the historian Sir Steven Runciman. David Runciman is heir to his family's viscountcy. He is married to the food writer Bee Wilson.

Career

Runciman began writing for the London Review of Books in 1996 and has written dozens of book reviews and articles on contemporary politics since, for the LRB and a number of other publications.

Runciman has published six books. An adaptation of his PhD thesis was published in 1997 as Pluralism and the Personality of the State. The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order (2006) evaluates contemporary and historical crisis in international politics after 9/11 while Political Hypocrisy (2008) explores the political uses of hypocrisy from a historical perspective. The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present (2013) lays out his theory of the threat of democratic overconfidence. Profile Books published his books Politics: Ideas in Profile and How Democracy Ends in 2014 and 2018, respectively.

In October 2014, he was appointed head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Runciman gave his inaugural lecture on 24 February 2015 on Political Theory and Real Politics in the Age of the Internet. He was preceded in this position by Andrew Gamble and Geoffrey Hawthorn.

One of Runcimans most influential works is Politics: Ideas in Profile. This book explores what politics is, why do we need it and where, in these troubling times, is it heading? Taking the reader across topics such as the gap between rich and poor to the impact of social media on our political climate, it is a useful resource for anyone who is interested in learning about how politics shapes the world. With reference to Machiavelli, Hobbes and Weber Runciman answer the questions that many ask themselves when discussing politics; such as how there can be such disparity between the wealthiest nations and the least developed.

Since 2015, Runciman has hosted a podcast called Talking Politics with Professor Helen Thompson. The podcast convenes a panel of academics from the University of Cambridge and elsewhere to speak about current affairs and politics. Guests have included Thomas Piketty, Judith Butler and John Lanchester.

In July 2018, Runciman was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).

Criticism

After a scathing book review in The Guardian of Antifragility by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Taleb referred to Runciman as the "second most stupid reviewer" of his works, arguing that Runciman had missed the concept of convexity, the theme of his book. "There are 607 references to convexity", Taleb wrote.

Selected works

• Runciman, David (1997). Pluralism and the Personality of the State. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521551915.
• Maitland, Frederic William (2003). David Runciman; Magnus Ryan (eds.). Maitland: State, Trust and Corporation; Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521526302.
• Runciman, David (2009). The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400827121.
• Runciman, David (2010). Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691148151.
• Brito Vieira, Monica; Runciman, David (2013). Representation. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780745658292.
• Runciman, David (2014). Politics: Ideas in Profile. Profile Books. ISBN 9781782831358.
• Runciman, David (2015). The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400866076.
• Runciman, David (2018). How Democracy Ends. Profile Books. ISBN 9781541616783.
• Runciman, David (2019). Where Power Stops. Profile Books. ISBN 9781788163330.

External links

• University of Cambridge profile page
• David Runciman at IMDb