Intelligence Squared

Who gets to win power and how do they keep it – and lose it? These are the questions that Mary Beard and Rory Stewart addressed when they came to Intelligence Squared on in November 2023. Beard, Britain’s best known classicist, has won legions of fans through her enthusiasm for the ancient world and her exploration of our cultural assumptions about powerful women, as depicted in her bestseller Wom...

Helen Fielding, creator of the Bridget Jones novels and films, and Gill Hornby, author of the bestseller Miss Austen, join Sotheby’s books specialist Kalika Sands and novelist Kate Mosse for a conversation in partnership with Sotheby's and held at Sotheby’s in London about the enduring appeal of the 19th-century novelist Jane Austen. Fielding explains that when it came to turning her newspaper col...

Robin Lane Fox, the classicist, ancient historian and also green-fingered gardening writer, discusses his most recent book: Homer and His Iliad. The Iliad, and epic poem written by the ancient Greek poet, Homer, has been a constant source of inspiration and reinterpretation for historians and writers over the centuries. Fox is an expert in Greek and Roman history and is Emeritus Fellow of New Coll...

For this episode, Yascha Mounk, the writer and political scientist discusses his recent book The Identity Trap, which explores what Mounk refers to as the modern world’s counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms. Joining Mounk in conversation is writer Tomiwa Owolade, author of the book This is Not America.  Want the hear the full extended conversation right now? Become a su...

Can we love the art of monstrous men? Can we truly separate the art from the artist? To answer these questions author and critic Claire Dederer came to Intelligence Squared to discuss the debate, which is the topic of her recent book: Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. Our host for the this episode is acclaimed writer Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women.  Want the hear the full extended conversation right...

The Government has introduced new legislation requiring annual rounds of oil and gas licensing in the North Sea. What is the relationship between licensing policy and the energy transition?  In the third instalment of the new podcast series from Intelligence Squared, Tides of Transformation: An Oil Story, produced in partnership with the Fraying Ties? project, Gavin Bridge from Durham University a...

In the final instalment of POWER TRIP, Carl Miller is looking towards the future and asking: will it be as dystopian as many fear? The difference between a well-trained algorithm and human emotional sophistication is still vast but as technology learns to mimic humanity, Carl learns that our perceptions of what feels human enough are evolving too. Featuring Henry Ajder, Generative AI & Deepfakes E...

Academic, activist and author Kehinde Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. His books include Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century and Resisting Racism: Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement. His latest is The Psychosis of Whiteness, which explores why society cannot face up to the racism at its heart and in its histor...

For almost 40 years, the Parthenon Marbles, or Elgin Marbles as they are also known, have been at the centre of the great restitution debate. Taken from Greece in contested circumstances by Lord Elgin in the 19th century, the marble sculptures that were part of the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis are housed in the British Museum. UK law prevents the museum from giving away objects...

Is China’s ascendance to world leadership an unstoppable force or a challenge we can overcome? Axios reporter Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian's recent book, Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World, looks to help answer that question. For several decades Chinese ascendancy has been supported by an astonishingly broad and deep portfolio of quiet coercion. The stories are breat...

Can AI be controlled? In this episode Carl Miller discovers what governments and governing bodies are doing to ensure AI is evolving in a way that can benefit society. Law and regulation look to balance safety and innovation – but are they at odds with one another? Will nations regulating with a light touch speed ahead in the global AI arms race? Featuring Darren Jones MP Chair of the Commons busi...

Gillian Tett is one of the world’s most in-demand economists. An acclaimed columnist and author at the Financial Times, she has long used her training as an anthropologist to break new ground on economic affairs, notably predicting the 2007–8 financial crisis after she observed the way bankers were behaving around the world. In partnership with Y TREE, In October 2023 she came to the the Intellige...

As Black History Month in the UK draws to a close, Intelligence Squared's Feyi Adegbite reflects on how the Black identity in the UK has changed over the years and highlights some of the best contemporary cultural picks from Black creatives across the worlds of fashion, theatre, art and music. This the audio version of Intelligence Squared's The Monthly Read newsletter, which takes a deep dive int...

This is the second instalment of a three-part discussion. Michael Lewis is the renowned author of bestselling nonfiction hits including Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys and Liar’s Poker. His latest is his most anticipated book to date: Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, a gripping, real-time narrative chronicling the enigmatic protagonist behind one of the most catastrophic fin...

Michael Lewis is the renowned author of bestselling nonfiction hits including Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys and Liar’s Poker. His latest is his most anticipated book to date: Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, a gripping, real-time narrative chronicling the enigmatic protagonist behind one of the most catastrophic financial meltdowns of the 21st century. This character is Sa...

America is at a crossroads. It is a time of moral reckoning, an opportunity for the nation to choose whether it will become a genuinely multiracial democracy. That’s the view of Eddie Glaude, African American scholar and author of the New York Times bestseller, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own. He believes that Baldwin, the great novelist and essayist who bor...

There isn't one narrative that fits all around AI. In this episode Carl Miller looks at how the future of artificial intelligence will be one beset by bias, whether that's a recruitment algorithm preferring men to women, racial bias in law and policing, or the failures of facial recognition technology to truly see diversity in an objective light. Featuring Judy Wajcman, Principal Investigator of t...

Oliver Burkeman is the anti-self-help author that everyone interested in self-help should read. He encourages us to embrace uncertainty and imperfection in a world obsessed with self-improvement and relentless goal-setting. For over ten years he wrote the popular ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’ column for The Guardian and his latest book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals, was a...

This is the second instalment a two-part discussion. Bestselling author, historian and broadcaster Simon Schama discusses Foreign Bodies, his new epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science. Produced in partnership with the British Library, the talk looks at how the narrative of cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate...

For this first episode of a two-part discussion, bestselling author, historian and broadcaster Simon Schama discusses Foreign Bodies, his new epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science. Produced in partnership with the British Library, the talk looks at how the narrative of cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for...

Annabelle Hirsch’s recent book is A History of Women in 101 Objects; a selective exploration through the past, both ancient and modern, looking at items found across millennia ranging from cave paintings from 20,000 BC to a ring owned by Kim Kardashian, which contribute to women's history. Hirsch is joined in conversation by the journalist, crime podcaster and screenwriter Poppy Damon, who is co-c...

We revisit POWER TRIP, Intelligence Squared's new podcast investigating the past and future of AI. Carl Miller asks who will win and who will lose, as AI's capabilities begin to threaten jobs and livelihoods. Through the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, automation and globalisation, the workplace has been on the frontlines of changes across wider society. Featuring Kenneth Cukki...

Anyone who follows the news cycle knows that between conflict and pandemics, the looming threat of the climate crisis, powerful AI and not to mention political scaremongering and moral panics, we’re never short of things to feel fearful of. Cultural historian Robert Peckham's recent book is: Fear: An Alternative History of the World. In it, he argues that fear is one of the main driving forces of...

The Labour MP Wes Streeting reveals his childhood struggle with poverty and the inspirational figures who set him on the path to university and politics in this discussion with BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Justin Webb. Streeting grew up in London’s East End and is now the UK’s shadow health secretary. He explains how the influence of his mother and two grandfathers had a lasting impact on his outlook a...

This is an episode of Tides of Transformation: An Oil Story, a brand new podcast from Intelligence Squared. In this episode, Gavin Bridge from Durham University and James Marriott of Platform London and the co-author of Crude Britannia: How Big Oil Shaped a Nation are joined by former CEO of the Net Zero Technology Centre Colette Cohen OBE and former trade union organiser Jake Molloy for a convers...