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Intelligence Squared

1,142 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 690 ratings

Intelligence Squared is the home of lively debate and deep-dive discussion. Follow Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy four regular episodes per week taking you to the heart of the issues that matter in the company of the world’s great minds. We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to [email protected] or Tweet us @intelligence2. 

And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. 

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Episodes

Misogyny and the Middle-Aged Woman, with Victoria Smith, Hadley Freeman and Sonia Sodha, Part Two

March 25, 2024 00:10 - 34 minutes

This is Part Two of a three-part discussion. Why are middle-aged women these days subject to so much rage and hatred – frequently from people who see themselves as kind and ‘on the right side of history’? What explains the popularity of the Karen meme, which references a stereotypically privileged white woman whom everyone feels entitled to loathe? Why does this age-old misogyny feel so very now? As writer Victoria Smith approached middle age she made her peace with her sagging neckline and h...

Misogyny and the Middle-Aged Woman, with Victoria Smith, Hadley Freeman and Sonia Sodha, Part One

March 24, 2024 00:10 - 35 minutes

This is Part One of a three-part discussion. Why are middle-aged women these days subject to so much rage and hatred – frequently from people who see themselves as kind and ‘on the right side of history’? What explains the popularity of the Karen meme, which references a stereotypically privileged white woman whom everyone feels entitled to loathe? Why does this age-old misogyny feel so very now? As writer Victoria Smith approached middle age she made her peace with her sagging neckline and h...

The Long Shadow of AI, with Madhumita Murgia

March 22, 2024 21:20 - 49 minutes

As a writer who focuses on technology and as AI Editor for The Financial Times, Madhumita Murgia has been unable to ignore the increasing reach of AI into the infrastructure that helps run our societies. It's the subject of her new book, Code Dependent, a study of how technology and AI often designed with idealistic intent is beginning to have a significant effect on real people's lives and not always for the better. Joining Murgia in conversation for this episode is Carl Miller, co-founder o...

How to Fix the Inequality of Wealth, with Liam Byrne

March 20, 2024 14:10 - 43 minutes

The Labour MP Liam Byrne is Chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee. He also served on the front bench for both prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. So he is well-positioned to be thinking about some of society's more pressing economic questions and these are the focus of his recent book, The Inequality of Wealth: Why it Matters and How to Fix it. Joining Byrne in conversation for this episode by the economist and writer Tej Parikh, Economics Leader Writer fo...

Page-Turner: A History of the Notebook

March 18, 2024 17:50 - 45 minutes

Roland Allen is a publisher and author whose new book is a history of that everyday essential, the humble notebook. His book – The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper – explores how the notebook's invention ushered in a communications revolution, transforming the ways that ideas were transmitted across the globe and even helping facilitate artistic movements within its pocket-sized pages. Joining Allen in conversation for this episode is fellow writer and former Managing Director of Cond...

Reimagining the Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, with Flora Carr

March 17, 2024 02:50 - 36 minutes

Debut novelist Flora Carr's new book, The Tower, looks at the life Scotland's 16th-century monarch Mary, Queen of Scots. In this tale of desire and friendship, Carr weaves in figures that have been long forgotten by the historical record and reimagines the Queen during the period she was imprisoned at Lochleven Castle in Scotland in order to create a new work of literary feminist fiction. Joining Carr to discuss the book for this episode is historian Francesca Peacock, whose own recent book –...

The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook with Martin Wolf

March 15, 2024 00:10 - 1 hour

2024 is set to be a seismic year. A win by Donald Trump in the US presidential election could upend the world economy, ongoing military conflicts could continue to escalate and the race to develop AI will accelerate as China and the US battle it out for technological supremacy. Who better to make sense of these unsettling and fast-changing times than Martin Wolf? He is Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times and widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential writers on the ...

Can You Put a Price Tag on a Life? with Jenny Kleeman

March 13, 2024 17:10 - 35 minutes

It’s often said that you can’t put a price on a life but in the name of business many organisations do it everyday. Drawing from the themes of her latest book, The Price of Life, journalist and broadcaster Jenny Kleeman shows us how the monetary value of human life is often coldly calculated in industries ranging from insurance to the welfare sector. She also digs into the disturbing and murky underworld of organised crime, where sourcing a hitman or a female trafficking victim could cost as ...

The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, with Peter Pomerantsev

March 11, 2024 23:45 - 40 minutes

Peter Pomerantsev is the journalist, author and academic who specialises in disinformation and the more covert mass communication techniques of our geopolitical age. His latest book is How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, which looks at the Second World War and the career of journalist Sefton Delmer, whose work for the British government contributed to the vital information war waged against Germany and the Nazis. Joining Pomerantsev in conversation for this e...

Debate: Save Our Private Schools – VAT Should Not Be Charged On Private School Fees, Part Two

March 10, 2024 00:10 - 43 minutes

This is the second instalment of our live debate with an expert panel deciding whether the UK's private schools should continue to enjoy their tax advantages. The UK has an education system that perpetuates inequality. Seven per cent of its children go to private schools and yet these institutions receive around three times the funding per student as the average state school. Privately educated people then go on to dominate our elite institutions. They are seven times as likely to win a place...

Debate: Save Our Private Schools – VAT Should Not Be Charged On Private School Fees, Part One

March 08, 2024 17:33 - 57 minutes

In this live debate, our expert panel decides whether the UK's private schools should continue to enjoy their tax advantages. The UK has an education system that perpetuates inequality. Seven per cent of its children go to private schools and yet these institutions receive around three times the funding per student as the average state school. Privately educated people then go on to dominate our elite institutions. They are seven times as likely to win a place at Oxford and Cambridge universi...

Fluke: How Chance and Chaos Shapes Our Existence, with Brian Klaas

March 06, 2024 17:00 - 36 minutes

In a world of chaos and disaster where many of us already feel powerless, it can be humbling to consider the idea of chance and fate having a big hand in all of our destinies, all of the time. But is it all just random? Someone who knows more about chaos and disaster than most is Dr Brian Klaas, political scientist at UCL and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His latest book is Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters. In it he explores how events of historic significance h...

Tim Marshall: How Geography Explains Our World, Part Two

March 04, 2024 00:10 - 47 minutes

This is the second instalment of our two-part discussion. Tim Marshall is one of the world’s most successful authors on foreign affairs. He’s the writer who put the ‘geo’ into geopolitics with his multi-million selling books Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography. Marshall’s principal argument is that without geography we cannot understand the world. His latest book is The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space will Change our World. In February 2024 Tim joined journa...

Tim Marshall: How Geography Explains Our World, Part One

March 03, 2024 16:58 - 45 minutes

Tim Marshall is one of the world’s most successful authors on foreign affairs. He’s the writer who put the ‘geo’ into geopolitics with his multi-million selling books Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography. Marshall’s principal argument is that without geography we cannot understand the world. His latest book is The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space will Change our World. In February 2024 Tim joined journalist and presenter Ritula Shah for an Intelligence Squared...

Sotheby's Talks: Impressionism and its Legacy

March 01, 2024 18:30 - 35 minutes

In this episode, Helen Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe is joined by Paul Signac’s great granddaughter Charlotte Hellman, artist Erik Madigan Heck, and the National Gallery’s Christopher Riopelle for a conversation about the revolutionary impact made by the Impressionists. This podcast was originally recorded at Sotheby’s in London in February 2024 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Impressionism. To see the works discussed in this episode and to step further into the world of Sotheby’...

Archive: The Joy of Science, with Jim Al-Khalili

February 28, 2024 21:50 - 43 minutes

In this archive listen from 2022, Professor Jim Al-Khalili is the physicist who makes science look easy. He’s the author of several books including The Joy of Science, which offers eight core scientific principles that can be applied to everyday life. As a broadcaster Jim is perhaps best known as the voice of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific and he holds the position of Distinguished Chair in physics and University Chair in public engagement at the University of Surrey. Our host for this dis...

Stuck in the Middle? Sociologist Corey Keyes on the Condition of Languishing

February 26, 2024 19:20 - 55 minutes

Corey Keyes is a sociologist and a professor at Emory University in Georgia who studies positive wellbeing: how humans thrive and flourish. He coined the term “languishing” to describe the opposite of flourishing. When you’re languishing you may not be mentally unwell, but you’re probably feeling low, directionless or undervalued, you might feel disconnected from others and like your life lacks meaning and purpose. He has recently published a book, Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a Wo...

Head of TED Chris Anderson and Jon Ronson on Translating Optimism Into Action, Part Two

February 25, 2024 00:10 - 55 minutes

In Part Two of our double episode discussion, we're once again joined by head of TED, Chris Anderson. He has had a ringside view of the world’s most influential thinkers in action – TED’s annual conference in Vancouver sees thousands of delegates flock from across the world to hear presentations from pre-eminent scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, political leaders and CEOs on the biggest issues of the day. Speakers have included Elon Musk on artificial intelligence, Bill Gates on how to prev...

Head of TED Chris Anderson and Jon Ronson on Translating Optimism Into Action, Part One

February 23, 2024 20:10 - 45 minutes

As head of TED, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world’s most influential thinkers in action. TED’s annual conference in Vancouver sees thousands of delegates flock from across the world to hear presentations from pre-eminent scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, political leaders and CEOs on the biggest issues of the day. Speakers have included Elon Musk on artificial intelligence, Bill Gates on how to prevent future pandemics and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on how to create a better...

Archive: Killer in the Kremlin, with John Sweeney

February 21, 2024 16:30 - 33 minutes

The recent death of Russian anti-corruption activist, opposition leader and political prisoner Alexei Navalny while serving a decades-long sentence in a remote Arctic penal colony shocked the world last week. But for those watching the erosion of free expression in Russia closely over recent years, sadly the news may have felt like more of a matter of grim inevitability rather than one of complete surprise. Back in July 2022, we heard from British investigative journalist and author, John Swe...

Six Centuries of Feminist Writing, with Hannah Dawson and Merve Emre

February 19, 2024 00:10 - 1 hour

How has feminist thought evolved throughout the ages? Beginning in the fifteenth century with Christine de Pizan, who imagined a City of Ladies that would serve as a refuge from the harassment of men, historian of ideas Hannah Dawson has magnificently drawn together an anthology of six hundred years of feminist thinking from all over the world in her latest book, The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing. Alongside traditional feminist icons such as Mary Wollstonecraft, who stated that she did ‘no...

Material World: How Six Crucial Substances Shape the Global Economy

February 18, 2024 00:10 - 1 hour

There are six crucial substances in human history, according to writer and broadcaster Ed Conway: sand, iron, salt, oil, copper and lithium. They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day. They build our homes and offices, power our computers and phones, and create life-saving medicines. But most of us take them completely for granted. As Sky News Economics Editor, Ed Conway has travelled the globe in search for the origins of these vital substances – from the sweltering darkness of the d...

Energised: How Do We Create A Green Jobs Revolution?

February 16, 2024 16:30 - 1 hour

Solar panel installers, architects, environmental scientists, recycling coordinators, wind turbine engineers, geologists, project managers, electric vehicle manufacturers – these are just a small subset of the countless jobs connected to the green revolution. For renewable energy to be a sustainable part of our lives, we need to ensure it offers both economic growth and climate security. How do we ensure the social and economic benefits of clean energy are available to all, and not just those...

Novelist Helen Oyeyemi on Why the City of Prague has Main Character Energy

February 14, 2024 23:10 - 30 minutes

The latest book from critically acclaimed writer Helen Oyeyemi, Parasol Against the Axe, is a novel set among the city of Prague’s streets. It’s often said that a city can feel like a character in a book but in a skilled feat of unconventional storytelling, Oyeyemi’s tale uses the city as the literal narrator of its story. That  plot involves a lost weekend set around a hen party and some surreal storytelling to make outlandish ideas come alive, while also focusing in on themes such as love a...

Why the Political World's a Stage

February 12, 2024 00:10 - 49 minutes

Richard Sennett is a sociologist and the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, whose work has given particular focus to areas such as how we co-exist in urban spaces and our places of employment. But his new book looks at the role of performance in society. The Performer explores how the spectacle of the arts can be mirrored in roles found elsewhere in life, such as in politics and wider everyday business, where we’re often being encouraged to try and make ourse...

Is Democracy Future-proof? with Jonathan White and David Runciman

February 11, 2024 00:10 - 54 minutes

2024 is set to be the biggest election year in history but what happens to politics when it’s always about the next election? We lose our sense of perspective, says Professor of Politics at London School of Economics, Jonathan White — and to our peril. The erosion of medium to long-term political thinking and the decaying of our political attention span has not only warped our political priorities, but has, he argues, endangered a pivotal idea central to democracy: the future. In conversation...

Alastair Campbell on Starmer, Sunak, and Saving Britain From Itself, Part Two

February 09, 2024 00:10 - 37 minutes

This is the second instalment of a three-part discussion. Often described as the second most powerful figure in Britain during the Blair governments, Alastair Campbell was pivotal as a strategist in leading New Labour to victory in 1997. In recent years Campbell has become a podcasting sensation as the co-host of The Rest is Politics podcast, dissecting what’s gone wrong in British politics – and more – with former Conservative Party minister Rory Stewart. For this episode, he comes to the In...

Alastair Campbell on Starmer, Sunak, and Saving Britain From Itself, Part One

February 07, 2024 16:32 - 38 minutes

Often described as the second most powerful figure in Britain during the Blair governments, Alastair Campbell was pivotal as a strategist in leading New Labour to victory in 1997. In recent years Campbell has become a podcasting sensation as the co-host of The Rest is Politics podcast, dissecting what’s gone wrong in British politics – and more – with former Conservative Party minister Rory Stewart. For this episode, he comes to the Intelligence Squared to discuss what to do about the chaos o...

A History of Magic and Astrology

February 05, 2024 18:00 - 1 hour

In uncertain times, people look to the stars and otherworldly influences for guidance. It has always been so, says Professor of History at Princeton University, Anthony Grafton, whose new book, Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa, traces the story of the dark arts over the centuries with a focus on Renaissance Europe. The figure of the Magus — a learned magician — was common around the circles of kings and princes and could help push the limits of knowledge while unveiling the sec...

The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade

February 04, 2024 19:20 - 39 minutes

Hannah Durkin is a historian whose new book, Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade, shines a light on the final years of a pivotal yet deeply troubling period in US and global history. The Clotilda, the subject of Durkin's book, was the last slave ship to land on American soil in 1860. This was despite a federal law banning the importation of captive individuals from the African continent having been passed over half a century prior. Some of the survivor...

The Showman: How Volodymyr Zelensky Shines on the World Stage

February 02, 2024 18:20 - 39 minutes

Simon Shuster is senior correspondent for Time. As a journalist working in both Russia and Ukraine for nearly two decades, he has watched and reported on the story of conflict between the two countries longer than many. His new book is The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky. Shuster has had unprecedented access to the Ukrainian president over a pivotal period for global history, tracing his journey from comedian, actor and pe...

How to Prevent Dementia, with Richard Restak

January 31, 2024 11:30 - 42 minutes

According to the WHO, Alzheimer’s ranks as the seventh leading cause of death globally. By 2050 or earlier in the absence of a breakthrough, the number of people aged 65 and older with Alzheimer’s is projected to reach 12.7 million people. But the more you know about dementia, the more tools you’ll arguably have to prevent or delay its onset. In this episode neurologist Dr Richard Restak in conversation with science journalist Alex Wilkins from New Scientist arms us with practical advice for ...

How to be a Supercommunicator, with Charles Duhigg

January 29, 2024 15:14 - 48 minutes

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and the celebrated author of bestselling book, The Power of Habit. The writer for the New Yorker returns now with his new book, Supercommunicators, which focuses on why some of us are a lot more gifted than others in getting our message heard. Joining Duhigg in conversation for this episode is Helen Czerski, the physicist, oceanographer, writer and science communicator. If you'd like to get access to all of our longer form interviews and mem...

Adam Grant and Tim Harford on Achieving Greatness, Part Two

January 28, 2024 00:10 - 35 minutes

This is the second instalment of our thee-part conversation with organisational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant. He is one of the most sought-after business minds in the world and has provided expert advice to many of the world’s greatest business leaders, including Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg, equipping them with the mental tools to find motivation and meaning, rethink assumptions, and achieve greatness in their business and personal lives. For this Intelligence Squared liv...

Adam Grant and Tim Harford on Achieving Greatness, Part One

January 26, 2024 19:00 - 36 minutes

Adam Grant is one of the most sought-after organisational psychologists in the world. He has provided expert advice to many of the world’s greatest business leaders, including Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg, equipping them with the mental tools to find motivation and meaning, rethink assumptions, and achieve greatness in their business and personal lives. For this Intelligence Squared live event, Grant joins economic journalist, FT senior columnist and author Tim Harford live onstage, to disc...

Fame, Women and the Toxic Noughties

January 24, 2024 20:40 - 1 hour

Columnist and writer Sarah Ditum is the author of Toxic, which explores how internet culture changed the face of celebrity forever during the early 2000s. The book looks at the era’s hostile treatment of female celebrities by the media, focusing on stars such as Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Paris Hilton and more, while highlighting some uncomfortable truths about what it meant to be a woman in the public eye at that time. Joining Ditum in conversation is the writer and broadcaster Helen Lew...

Adventures in Philosophy with Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins

January 22, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour

Two formidable minds explore the worlds of philosophy, science and the places where those two disciplines meet for this episode. Daniel Dennett is the American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist who is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University and has written over a dozen books, the latest of which is: I've Been Thinking. Joining him in conversation is Richard Dawkins, the influential British biologist, scientist and writer. Dawkins is renowned for his work on how genes p...

Life Lessons from the Early Greeks with Adam Nicolson

January 21, 2024 17:00 - 53 minutes

Adam Nicolson is the writer and author whose past books have explored immersive and at times weighty topics such as our understanding of the Bible and the work of great poets such as Coleridge and Wordsworth. He returns with a new book, How To Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks, which looks at not only the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks but also how the geography of the lands they came from helped shape their thinking. Joining Nicolson in conversation is the writer, academic and broadca...

The Mend is Nigh: Hannah Ritchie on How to Build a Sustainable Planet

January 19, 2024 16:20 - 52 minutes

Hannah Ritchie is the influential data scientist and researcher whose new book adds a rare glimpse of optimism to the conversation surrounding the future health of the climate. Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet asks us to look again at the tools available to us to make an impact on the world's most existential issue – packed with the latest research, practical guidance and enlightening ideas, it’s a book that will make you rethink almos...

Daniel Goleman on How to Reach the Optimal Mindset

January 17, 2024 00:10 - 32 minutes

The psychologist, writer and journalist Daniel Goleman is the author the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence and many more popular titles exploring the workings of the mind. His new book, co-authored with fellow psychologist and academic Cary Cherniss, is Optimal: How to Sustain Excellence Every Day. The book highlights practical methods for applying the principles of emotional intelligence to everyday life so more people can enter an optimal state of high performance – offering a roadmap...

Another Side of the Moon: How the Lunar Landscape Inspires Imagination

January 15, 2024 11:20 - 51 minutes

Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science writer whose words have appeared in titles such as The Atlantic, New Scientist and the New York Times. Her new book is Our Moon. It's both a meticulous scientific account of the forces at play around that big rock in the sky and also a cultural history of how humans on Earth have been inspired by it over millennia. Boyle's book captures the the lengths humanity has gone to in order to create myths and stories around the moon while studying its astrono...

The Political Thought of Xi Jinping

January 14, 2024 00:10 - 50 minutes

China’s President Xi Jinping is a figure of extraordinary influence around the world but it in the West the nuances and intricacies of his political agenda are less well understood. The Political Thought of Xi Jinping is a new book from Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, and Dr Olivia Cheung, Research Fellow of the China Institute at SOAS University of London. The book draws from Xi Jinping's own words and writings issued in his name to explain his ideas and plans, offering th...

Sotheby’s Talks: Munch, with Tracey Emin

January 12, 2024 13:00 - 41 minutes

This is an episode of Sotheby's Talks, the podcast that celebrates art, culture, and collecting. Edvard Munch pioneered Expressionism and embraced life’s most painful experiences to create art: his pursuit of emotional truth changed art forever. Tracey Emin, who has been a major figure in contemporary art for more than 25 years, has always been fascinated by the Norwegian master and, in 2021, she exhibited 25 of her own works alongside Munch’s oils and watercolours at the Royal Academy. In ...

How The Female Body Has Driven Evolution

January 10, 2024 00:10 - 56 minutes

Cat Bohannon is a researcher and author with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind and Science Magazine. Her recent book is Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which explores how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about the vital role that the female body as played over the course of millions of years. Joining Bohannon to discuss the boo...

Power Grab: David Runciman on the Reach of Corporations, States and AI

January 08, 2024 00:10 - 59 minutes

David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the author of books including The Politics of Good Intentions, Political Hypocrisy and The Confidence Trap. He also hosts the popular Past Present Future podcast. His latest book is The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs. The book argues that states and corporations are the immensely powerful artificial entities that now rule our world, with AI a third frontier about to join an already ...

All Talk: How Dialects and Diversity Enrich the Culture of the UK

January 07, 2024 10:30 - 1 hour

Rob Drummond is Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. His recent book You’re All Talk explores the enormous diversity in our spoken language across the UK to reveal extraordinary insights into how humans operate: how we perceive (and judge) other people and how we would like ourselves to be perceived. Joining Drummond in conversation for this episode is Intelligence Squared’s Executive Producer, Hannah Kaye. If you'd like to get access to all of our longer form...

Fixing France: Nabila Ramdani on How to Repair a Broken Republic

January 05, 2024 11:50 - 54 minutes

Nabila Ramdani is a French-Algerian writer, broadcaster and academic, whose recent book is Fixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republic. Historically, France is a country with ideals that strive for liberty, equality and fraternity but the reality in recent years is something different. Its leader President Macron has cultivated a political landscape with no clear successor ready to carry liberal or centre-ground politics forward. Instead, the next president might come from the far right an...

Blazing Ambition: the Life of Margaret Cavendish

January 03, 2024 22:00 - 57 minutes

Born near Colchester, England in 1623, Margaret Cavendish was a writer blazing a trail for women during a time when the world was dominated by men. Her writing ranges from philosophy to poetry, plays and also includes what is now considered to be a proto-science fiction novel, The Blazing World. So why do we rarely hear her name today? Looking to put that right is journalist and now author Francesca Peacock. Her recent book, Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish, aims to tell...

Debate: Free Will is an Illusion

January 01, 2024 16:00 - 53 minutes

We’re all making life choices at this time of year – perhaps a few new years' resolutions are in the mix – either way, you’ll have a stake in a tussle of big ideas as we debate the motion: Free Will is an Illusion. Our host for this episode is the writer, philosopher and podcaster Nigel Warburton, who is co-host of the popular Philosophy Bites podcast and author of books including A Little History of Philosophy, The Art Question, and Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction. Joining Warburton t...

Best of 2023: James Comey, Armando Iannucci and Bach vs Beethoven

December 31, 2023 21:00 - 55 minutes

In the fourth and final part of our staff picks episodes the Intelligence Squared team continue their look back across 2023 to pick their favourite moments from all of the podcasts we've produced over the past 12 months. Intelligence Squared CEO Matt McAllester joins Executive Producer Hannah Kaye for this instalment to select their highlights. Matt is going for James Comey and Armando Iannucci, who appeared live onstage together at London's Union Chapel in summer 2023. Hannah selects Bach vs...

Guests

Steven Pinker
5 Episodes
Niall Ferguson
4 Episodes
Brian Cox
3 Episodes
Ian McEwan
3 Episodes
Jamie Bartlett
3 Episodes
Jimmy Carter
3 Episodes
John Gray
3 Episodes
Naomi Klein
3 Episodes
Stephen Fry
3 Episodes
Yuval Noah Harari
3 Episodes
Cory Doctorow
2 Episodes
Daniel Goleman
2 Episodes
Dan Pink
2 Episodes
David Brooks
2 Episodes
David Eagleman
2 Episodes
Karen Armstrong
2 Episodes
Marina Abramović
2 Episodes
Michael Pollan
2 Episodes
Michael Sandel
2 Episodes
Richard Dawkins
2 Episodes
Roger Scruton
2 Episodes
Sam Harris
2 Episodes
Terry Eagleton
2 Episodes
Terry Gilliam
2 Episodes
Umberto Eco
2 Episodes
William Gibson
2 Episodes
Yanis Varoufakis
2 Episodes
Adam Grant
1 Episode
Adam Phillips
1 Episode
Anand Giridharadas
1 Episode
BJ Fogg
1 Episode
Bruce Daisley
1 Episode
Chris Anderson
1 Episode
David Wootton
1 Episode
Elif Shafak
1 Episode
Gemma Milne
1 Episode
George Steiner
1 Episode
Ian Fleming
1 Episode
Ivan Krastev
1 Episode
Jeanette Winterson
1 Episode
Jeremy Irons
1 Episode
Johan Norberg
1 Episode
John le Carré
1 Episode
John Maeda
1 Episode
Jonathan Haidt
1 Episode
jon ronson
1 Episode
Jon Ronson
1 Episode
Jordan Peterson
1 Episode
Karl Marx
1 Episode
Kate Mosse
1 Episode
Laurie Penny
1 Episode
Leonard Mlodinow
1 Episode
Malala Yousafzai
1 Episode
Marcus du Sautoy
1 Episode
Mariana Mazzucato
1 Episode
Mark Millar
1 Episode
Martin Amis
1 Episode
Martin Luther
1 Episode
Mary Robinson
1 Episode
Matt Ridley
1 Episode
Megan Twohey
1 Episode
Michael Lewis
1 Episode
Michael Palin
1 Episode
Muhammad Yunus
1 Episode
Naomi Wolf
1 Episode
Nate Silver
1 Episode
Peter Biskind
1 Episode
Philip Pullman
1 Episode
P.J. O'Rourke
1 Episode
Rachel Botsman
1 Episode
Randall Munroe
1 Episode
Reid Hoffman
1 Episode
Richard Seymour
1 Episode
Rory Stewart
1 Episode
Rutger Bregman
1 Episode
Salman Rushdie
1 Episode
Sarah Dunant
1 Episode
Sheryl Sandberg
1 Episode
Simon Schama
1 Episode
Slavoj Žižek
1 Episode
Tim Harford
1 Episode
Tristan Harris
1 Episode

Books

Brave New World
1 Episode
The White House
1 Episode

Twitter Mentions

@intelligence2 4 Episodes
@chrishirst 2 Episodes