Intelligence Squared

Food Campaigner Henry Dimbleby is co-founder of LEON and recently quit his role as the government’s food tsar over its inaction over obesity. His recent book, Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape, looks at the global food system that has resulted in 28% of people now being clinically obese in the UK alone and diet-related disease now being the biggest cause of preventable illne...

In this archive episode from 2021, we hear from a panel of historians, authors and broadcasters – Hallie Rubenhold, Natalie Livingstone, Dan Jones and chair Saul David – about how women's stories and female historians have been marginalised throughout history. The conversation recorded at The Cliveden Literary Festival also discusses how historians today can help redress the imbalance. We’d love t...

Samira Ahmed is joined by Friends star David Schwimmer and comedy writer Nick Mohammed. David Schwimmer is one of the most recognisable faces on television. His iconic role as Ross Geller in all 236 episodes of Friends has made him TV royalty. And beyond the global cultural impact of Friends, Schwimmer is a seasoned stage actor and has gone on to direct the hit comedy Run Fatboy Run and gain criti...

General David Petraeus rose to prominence for his role in the Iraq War. He was credited with implementing a counterinsurgency strategy that helped to stabilise the country and reduce violence, earning him widespread praise and recognition as one of the most effective military commanders of his generation. And from September 2011 until November 2012 he served as director of the CIA. In this episode...

Carl Erik Fisher is a psychiatrist, bioethicist and recovering alcoholic who has spent years tracing the history of addiction. His new book is The Urge: Our History of Addiction, a sweeping study of the issue and an urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced and compassionate view of one of society's most difficult challenges. In conversation with Carl is physicist, oceanographer and science presen...

Over lunch in his house in Oxford, bestselling author Philip Pullman speaks to broadcaster Samira Ahmed about the moments of his childhood and youth that shaped and inspired his unique storytelling. This episode is part of our series How I Found My Voice, hosted by Samira Ahmed. If you like this episode do check out the entire series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

Samira Ahmed speaks to best-selling author Kate Mosse. Together they discuss her life and career, the success of her historical fiction novels - including Labyrinth which won Best Read of the Year at the 2006 British Book Awards - and her contribution to the recognition of female writers. The recording for this episode took place in February 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastcho...

For this week's Sunday Debate, we're dipping back into the archive to 2014, when we gathered a panel of expert historians to debate whether Britain was right to fight in the First World War, a tragedy that laid the foundations for decades of destructive upheaval and violence across Europe. To debate the issue, we invited leading historians Margaret MacMillan, Max Hastings, John Charmley and Domini...

Samira Ahmed speaks to model and actress Emily Ratajkowski. Together they discuss her rise to fame after appearing in the music video for the controversial song ‘Blurred Lines’, as well as the fraught relationship between feminism, capitalism, and exploitation. The recording for this episode took place in September 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Carlo Rovelli is one of the world’s best-known scientists. A theoretical physicist, his books have sold over two million copies around the world. He recently came to Intelligence Squared to talk about his favourite scientist, the little-known Greek philosopher Anaximander, whose ideas, articulated over two millennia ago, lay the foundations for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biolo...

Ever since the discovery of DNA scientists have been on a quest to understand the secrets of the human genome. This quest has not only involved analysing the role genes play in making us who we are – the history of genetics has also been shaped by a desire to explore how far our genes can be altered or enhanced.  In 2012, the discovery that a molecule known as CRISPR could be programmed to add and...

Ever since the discovery of DNA scientists have been on a quest to understand the secrets of the human genome. This quest has not only involved analysing the role genes play in making us who we are – the history of genetics has also been shaped by a desire to explore how far our genes can be altered or enhanced.  In 2012, the discovery that a tool known as CRISPR could be programmed to add and rem...

Samira Ahmed speaks to Academy Award-nominated actor Jude Law. They speak about his life and career, skipping school to go to the cinema in London as a teenager, his foray into acting, and the wide range of characters he’s covered in his career, from Dr. John Watson to the Pope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is not a debate of religion vs. secularism. This is a debate about where and how the values in life are found, produced, and experienced. Some would argue that atheism has gone too far and there needs to be some point of unity to rally a sense of community around - what will fill a God shaped hole? And to what extent is religion defined by its practices versus the belief in a God? This animat...

War - Do we care enough? In this episode, distinguished historian Margaret MacMillan explains why we should care about war and how it’s profoundly impacted our societies, political institutions, values, language and some of our greatest cultural treasures. In conversation with bestselling author and historian Peter Frankopan, MacMillan examines questions such as why warriors are typically men, wha...

Tony Blair is the man who reinvented Labour, won a landslide majority in 1997 and went on to win three elections, becoming Labour’s longest-serving prime minister. He is also the man accused of lies, hubris, money-making deals and taking us into an illegal war.   This episode features a live event which Intelligence Squared hosted in London in March 2016, when we put Tony Blair on trial and examin...

How did the Iraq war fuel terror and extremism around the world? What is the connection between Al-Qaeda and ISIS? How did figures like Abū Muṣʻab Zarqāwī and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi become such prominent figures in Jihadism’s global civil war? On episode four of this series Iraq: Legacy of War, brought to you by Intelligence Squared, foreign correspondent Secunder Kermani is joined by Lina Khatib, D...

Over the last twenty years, award-winning Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, has watched his nation disappear time and time again. Sectarian division, ethnic division, and military intervention have torn his native Baghdad apart - leaving him feeling like a stranger in his own city. In the third episode of this series Iraq: Legacy of War, brought to you by Intelligence Squared, host Renad Mansour...

What happened in Iraq once the Americans and the British arrived? Why was the transfer of power a far from smooth operation? And what else went wrong in what should have been the mission for liberation? In the second episode of this series Iraq: Legacy of War, brought to you by Intelligence Squared, host Manveen Rana, is joined again by Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham Hou...

Exactly twenty years ago today on the 20th March 2003, the US along with its allies launched a shock and awe bombing campaign on Iraq. It marked the start of the invasion - and occupation - of Iraq - a defining moment in modern history and contemporary politics. In the first episode of this series Iraq: Legacy of War brought to you by Intelligence Squared, we’ll be taking a deep dive into key mome...

In 2015, Intelligence Squared staged the ultimate clash of civilisations: Greece vs Rome. Boris Johnson, at that time Mayor of London and ardent classicist, made the case for Greece; while Mary Beard, today Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Sheffield and known for her extensive career as a broadcaster and writer, championed Rome. As we revisit this archive debate held in the p...

Ever since she was a young child, journalist Hayley Campbell has been fascinated by death. It's the theme of her new book, All the Living and the Dead: An Exploration of the People Who Make Death Their Life’s Work, which has been acclaimed by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Nigella Lawson and Tuppence Middleton. In conversation with writer Blanche Girouard, Campbell relates the encounters she has had wi...

We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread connecting ancient Greece to modern Europe, from Plato to NATO. But what if the idea itself is deeply flawed? Historian and archaeologist Naoíse Mac Sweeney's recent book, The West: A New History of an Old Idea, argues that our understanding of the West is deeply misleading and obscures the rich diversity of our past. Drawing on the lives...

The literal translation of amateur is ‘lover of’ so why is it a word so often steeped in derogatory overtones? Why, when we’re asked for our hobbies, are we inclined to diminish their status in our lives? Our hobbies make us human. From pottery, to geo-guessing; orienteering to stamp collecting; it is in these small, often quiet, building blocks of life that we so often find true meaning and conne...

We have some really exciting news for you, we've launched a brand new podcast – Intelligence Squared Arts & Culture. Join us every week as we delve into the artistic and cultural moments, movements and conversations that have shaped, and are still shaping, our world. Over the years we’ve produced hundreds of Arts and Culture debates, live events, discussions and interviews, working with some of th...