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Intelligence Squared

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

society & culture news commentary

All Episodes

38:44

Can Mathematics Fuel Creativity? With Marcus du...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/13

From the earliest stone circles to Mozart’s obsession with numbers to the radically modern architecture of Zaha Hadid, maths and creativity are interwoven across time and space. Whether we are searching for meaning in an abstract painting or finding patterns in poetry, there are blueprints everywhere: symmetry, prime numbers, the golden ratio and more. In May 2025 we were joined by award-winning mathematician and Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy as he looked to the arts to uncover the key

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46:22

What Can Ancient Civilisations Teach Us About...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/11

What if apocalypse isn’t the end of the world - but a chance to remake it?On today’s episode we’re joined by science journalist Lizzie Wade to explore Apocalypse, her bold new book about how catastrophe has shaped humanity’s past and can forge more just futures. Drawing on archaeology and anthropology, Wade reframes collapse not as destruction but transformation - revealing how people have endured pandemics, climate shocks, and civilisational upheaval before, and what their stories can teach us

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44:31

What Can The Stoics Teach Us About Capitalism?

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/10

In this episode of Intelligence Squared, financier, philanthropist, and author Robert Rosenkranz joins host Bill Browder for a thought-provoking conversation on how ancient wisdom can power modern achievement. Drawing from his latest book, The Stoic Capitalist, Rosenkranz explores how Stoic philosophy—rooted in ideas from 300 BC—can be applied to create a life of accomplishment, fulfillment, and impact in today’s fast-paced world. ---- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our

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39:34

Are you morally ambitious? With Rutger Bregman (Part...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/08

Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place. To devote your career to the greatest challenges of our time. To be one of the best, but measured by a new standard of success.’ – Rutger Bregman The brightest minds of our generation may dream of changing the world. But in reality most high achievers will settle for making a lot of money for themselves and their family. World renowned historian and bestselling author Rutger Bregman is on a mission to change that. In April,

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40:26

Are you morally ambitious? With Rutger Bregman (Part...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/06

Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place. To devote your career to the greatest challenges of our time. To be one of the best, but measured by a new standard of success.’ – Rutger Bregman The brightest minds of our generation may dream of changing the world. But in reality most high achievers will settle for making a lot of money for themselves and their family. World renowned historian and bestselling author Rutger Bregman is on a mission to change that. In April,

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39:31

Author of Four Thousand Weeks Oliver Burkeman on How...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/04

Acclaimed author and journalist Oliver Burkeman has captivated readers with his refreshing insights on how to embrace the finiteness of existence and find meaning in the everyday. Author of the bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and formerly a columnist for the Guardian, Burkeman challenges conventional productivity advice, offering a more realistic perspective on how to live well. In April 2025 Burkeman came to the Intelligence Squared stage, where he was in

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39:27

Author of Four Thousand Weeks Oliver Burkeman on How...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/03

Acclaimed author and journalist Oliver Burkeman has captivated readers with his refreshing insights on how to embrace the finiteness of existence and find meaning in the everyday. Author of the bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and formerly a columnist for the Guardian, Burkeman challenges conventional productivity advice, offering a more realistic perspective on how to live well.In April 2025 Burkeman came to the Intelligence Squared stage, where he was in

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39:37

Jonathan Haidt on How to Free the Anxious Generation...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/05/01

“This great rewiring of childhood, I argue, is the single largest reason for the tidal wave of adolescent mental illness that began in the early 2010s.” — Jonathan HaidtThe mental health of young people has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. In recent months, debates have raged about the impact of smartphones on adolescent wellbeing: Should they be banned in schools? Should children under 14 or 16 even have access to them? These questions have fuelled a growing movement to address

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44:06

Jonathan Haidt on How to Free the Anxious Generation...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/30

“This great rewiring of childhood, I argue, is the single largest reason for the tidal wave of adolescent mental illness that began in the early 2010s.” — Jonathan HaidtThe mental health of young people has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. In recent months, debates have raged about the impact of smartphones on adolescent wellbeing: Should they be banned in schools? Should children under 14 or 16 even have access to them? These questions have fuelled a growing movement to address

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59:46

A Cultural History of Privacy, with Tiffany Jenkins

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/28

What does it mean to have a private life? Our guest today is Tiffany Jenkins, a writer, cultural historian and broadcaster. She is the author of the acclaimed Keeping Their Marbles: How Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There, and a former honorary fellow in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. She wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 series ‘A History of Secrecy’ and ‘Contracts of Silence', about the rise of non-disclosure agreements. Today we’ll be

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97:35

Britain Should Not Have Fought in the First World War

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/27

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 Dominic Sandbrook to an event hosted by journalist, columnist and national security expert, Edward

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38:07

The Tree of Life: Mapping Evolution’s Greatest Story,...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/24

Understanding how the diversity of life on earth came to be is one of the greatest puzzles in biology. In his new book, The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle, Professor Max Telford charts a four-billion-year journey through the evolution of our planet, from humans, fish and butterflies to oak trees, mushrooms and bacteria.On today’s episode, Professor Telford sheds light on an epic history of the family tree that records the relationships between every living thing - from Darwin’s

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43:21

Ritual, Ancestry, and Cultural History in Modern...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/23

What do we owe to the dead? What responsibilities do we inherit from the past, and how do they intersect with the crises of the present? In an era of ecological collapse and cultural dislocation, how can we meaningfully honour ancestral memory when the material sites of remembrance - tombs, villages, traditions - are themselves vanishing? In this episode, sociologist and author Alice Mah joins us to discuss her new book, Red Pockets, a deeply personal yet globally resonant exploration of ancestry,

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46:03

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, with...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/21

What if a single ancient language lay at the root of nearly half of the world’s spoken tongues? In today’s episode, acclaimed science writer and journalist Laura Spinney joins us to discuss her new book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global. In Proto, Spinney takes us deep into the mystery of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) - a prehistoric language that no one alive has heard, yet whose echoes can still be found in words spoken from Ireland to India. From the English word star, to Icelandic

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99:15

Classic Debate: Austen vs Brontë

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/20

Jane Austen created the definitive picture of Georgian England. No writer matches Austen’s sensitive ear for the hypocrisy and irony lurking beneath the genteel conversation. That’s the argument of the Janeites, but to the aficionados of Emily Brontë they are the misguided worshippers of a circumscribed mind. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë dispensed with Austen’s niceties and the upper-middle class drawing rooms of Bath and the home counties. Her backdrop is the savage Yorkshire moors, her subject the

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56:01

An Evening with Elif Shafak and Peter Frankopan

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/18

Elif Shafak’s award-winning novels are celebrated globally. Her work has been translated into 58 languages, and her latest, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is a testament to the power of storytelling across borders and cultures.This is an epic story of interconnection. Spanning ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary London, Shafak charts the lifespan of a raindrop, as it is consumed, subsumed and transformed across continents and centuries. This sweeping narrative is anchored by the lives of three

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50:58

Abundance: A New Blueprint for Liberal Politics, With...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/16

What if the biggest threat to liberal democracy isn’t authoritarianism - but our failure to build? On today’s episode we’re joined by journalist Derek Thompson to unpack Abundance, a new vision of progressive politics co-authored by Thompson and Ezra Klein. In it, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, host of the Plain English podcast, and the author

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53:19

The Illegals: A Secret History of Soviet Espionage,...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/13

On today’s episode: the untold history of Russia’s deep cover spy programme. Shaun Walker is an international correspondent for The Guardian. He reported from Moscow for more than a decade, and his coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine was shortlisted for the Foreign Reporter of the Year category at the British 2023 Press Awards. In his new book, The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West, Walker explores the untold history of Russia’s deep cover spy programme,

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49:50

Who Owns Our Digital Afterlives? With Carl Öhman

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/12

These days, so much of our lives takes place online - but what about our afterlives? A recent study by the Oxford Internet Institute predicts that the number of deceased Facebook users could outnumber the living by 2070. As AI advances, a debate is growing over digital remains and what should be done with the vast amounts of data we leave behind.In this episode, Carl Öhman, author of The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care, explores the ethics,

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42:44

Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History, with...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/04/10

On today’s episode, Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid sheds light on the history of Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, gave rise to writing, literature, astronomy, and law - shaping human history in ways that still resonate today. Drawing on her new book Between Two Rivers, Al-Rashid brings to life the stories of ordinary people from thousands of years ago: working mothers, enslaved individuals seeking freedom, and even a princess who may have founded the first

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