Intelligence Squared

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 podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2. 

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Society & Culture
Arts
News Commentary
1001
Trump, Brexit and the Direction of 2021, with W...
2021 is already set to be a monumental year. On January 1 Britain finally Brexited with a deal. On January 20 Joe Biden will become President of the United States. And as we move towards the summer months more and more of us will be vaccinated against ...
59 min
1002
How to Make the World Add Up, with Tim Harford
This episode was recorded in September 2020. 'The undercover economist' and Numbers and economics guru Tim Harford takes a deep dive into the world of statistics. Drawing on the ideas in his new book, How to Make the Worl...
50 min
1003
Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia, with Mad...
In 2018 journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi regime operatives, shocking the world and drawing widespread condemnation. Mohammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s young crown prince, denied any involvement in the killing but his reputation as a mod...
55 min
1004
Otegha Uwagba and Mariel Richards on Navigating...
In November 2020 author and podcaster Otegha Uwagba came to Intelligence Squared to discuss her new book, Whites: On Race and Other Falsehoods. Containing reflections on racism, whiteness, and the mental labour required of Black people to navigate rela...
55 min
1005
Christmas Special: Dan Goleman on Emotional Int...
No speaker in the history of Intelligence Squared has generated as many YouTube views as Daniel Goleman. His 2013 talk for us has been viewed 3.2 million times. Goleman returned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his number...
55 min
1006
The Art of Rest, with Claudia Hammond and Helen...
The pandemic of 2020 has turned our lives upside down. Home working and homeschooling have become the norm for millions of us. And while you might think that the absence of long commutes, live entertainment and late-night socialising means we are more ...
55 min
1007
Alicia Garza on Creating Black Lives Matter
Alicia Garza recounts how she and her Black Lives Matter co-founders built BLM into the most influential movement of recent times
55 min
1008
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Fall of...
In its earliest days, WeWork promised the impossible: to make the workplace cool. In episode one of Intelligence Squared Business Reeves Wiedeman tells the story of how WeWork attracted billions of dollars from some of the most sought-after investors i...
44 min
1009
Philosophy in the Age of Covid-19, with Eric We...
In this week's episode Eric Weiner speaks to Danielle Sands about what philosophy can teach us in the age of COVID-19. From Socrates and ancient Athens to Simone de Beauvoir and twentieth-century Paris they discuss philosophers a...
30 min
1010
Cats vs Dogs, with John Gray and Will Self, Par...
It’s the issue that’s more divisive than Brexit, more polarising than politics. The world is full of animal lovers but we can’t agree on which pet is more worthy of our love – the loyal, obedient dog, or the inscrutable, capricious cat. In ...
31 min
1011
COVID-19 and The Vaccine: A Shot of Hope and A ...
The world had been waiting for the news and on November 9 it finally came: a vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech had proved to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in clinical trials. And then just a week later another pharmaceutical c...
45 min
1012
Debate: It’s Time for the West to Get Tough wit...
In December 2020 we were joined by British Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, who argued that we need to prevent a Beijing-dominated world, and Singaporean author Kishore Mahbubani, who contends that the West should accept that it’s only a matter of time b...
43 min
1013
The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber...
Lionel Barber was editor of the Financial Times for the tech boom, the global financial crisis, the continuing rise of China, Brexit, and the established media’s fight for survival in the age of disinformation. In this episode he revealed wh...
57 min
1014
Travelling While Black, with Nanjala Nyabola an...
At this point in history we are witnessing the highest levels of migration on record. About 258 million people, or one in every 30, were living outside their country of birth in 2017. But whatever an individual’s reason for travel the experience tends ...
56 min
1015
Debate: Joe Biden Won't Fix the Transatlantic R...
This week's episode features another debate from our friends at Intelligence Squared Germany, who in partnership with The European Council on Foreign Relations debated whether the election of Joe Biden as U.S President will really change ...
51 min
1016
Anthony Scaramucci and Danielle Pletka on Trump...
This week Anthony Scaramucci, the former Director of Communications in President Donald Trump’s White House, and Danielle Pletka, former Vice President at the American Enterprise Institute, debate the Republican Party's response to the US election...
44 min
1017
Business and the Future of Immigration in 2021
In this special podcast brought to you by the Home Office and Intelligence Squared, Director of Border and Immigration Policy at the Home Office Philippa Rouse, Head of Immigration Policy at the FSB Emelia Quist, and Partner at Fragomen Ian Robinson di...
33 min
1018
Margaret MacMillan and Peter Frankopan on How W...
Margaret MacMillan is a distinguished historian, known for her masterly grasp of her subject matter as well as her gift for vivid storytelling. In November 2020 she came to Intelligence Squared Plus to discuss war, a topic which, she argues, we should ...
51 min
1019
Rematch Debate: To Stop Climate Collapse, We Mu...
Last January, before the coronavirus pandemic struck, Intelligence Squared staged a sold-out debate on whether we need a truly radical new economic system to deal with the looming climate catastrophe. While Covid-19 has dominated the headlines for most...
58 min
1020
Martin Amis on Love, Loss and Christopher Hitchens
Martin Amis has often been called the Mick Jagger of the British book world. As famous for his love affairs, his friendships and his complicated family history as for his dazzling prose, he has dominated the literary scene for decades. In this exclusiv...
28 min
1021
Danh Vo: Traces of History and The End of Empire
In this week's podcast Design Museum director Tim Marlow, South London Gallery director Margot Heller, academic and critic Shahidha Bari and botanist Roy Vickery discuss the White Cube Gallery exhibition 'Danh Vo: 'Chicxulub'. Incor...
47 min
1022
Election Breakdown: Can Trump Still Beat Biden?
In this election special we were joined by Danielle Pletka, the Washington Post commentator and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Josh Glancy, the Washington Bureau Chief of The Sunday Times to analyse how the candidates have perf...
35 min
1023
Election Day Special: What's at Stake in Trump ...
In this U.S election special we were joined by historian Sarah Churchwell and Jonathan Freedland to speak about how Biden and Trump have performed in the final weeks of the presidential race, the battleground States listeners should look out for and wh...
34 min
1024
Election Day Special, with Danielle Pletka, Emi...
In this week's episode we were joined by Danielle Pletka, Washington Post commentator and senior fellow at the American Enterprise; and Emily Tamkin, U.S editor of The New Statesman, to speak about how the candidates have performed in the...
25 min
1025
BONUS: Ilhan Omar on the State of American Poli...
Rep. Ilhan Omar, the groundbreaking Somali-American community organizer from Minnesota, speaks to public intellectuals Dr Cornel West and Professor Tricia Rose. She lays out her #PeopleFirst plan to transform our society and how the progressiv...
26 min