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PODCAST

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

62:50

How will Taiwan shape Asia’s future? With Chris Horton

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/26

The issue of Taiwan is a constant background hum in today’s news cycle. Perched precariously on the fault-lines of global power, the fate of this vibrant democracy and tech colossus will shape Asia’s future – either containing or facilitating China’s expansionist goals.In today’s episode we’re joined by top foreign correspondent Chris Horton. Horton has spent over a decade of living and reporting in Taiwan, and has interviewed everyday citizens, presidents and other key figures for his new book

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51:16

Where Will the Next Tech Superpower Emerge? With...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/25

For the past fifty years, Silicon Valley has led the world in developing cutting-edge technologies and spawning high-growth, billion-dollar tech companies. More recently, China has emerged as a formidable force in innovation. But is our focus on the US-China rivalry causing us to overlook the rise of new tech powerhouses elsewhere? In today’s episode, Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize winner Mehran Gul invites us to take a wider view. Drawing from his new book, The New Geography of

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50:15

The Safekeep, with Women’s Prize-winner Yael van der...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/23

It’s been a remarkable eighteen months for Dutch-Israeli author Yael van der Wouden. Her debut novel, The Safekeep, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and this year it won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Set in the Netherlands 15 years after the end of World War II, The Safekeep is the story of a reclusive young woman living in her family’s isolated country home, whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of an unpredictable house guest. In this episode, Yael sat down with host Mythili Rao

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40:52

How Can Football Shirts Explain Money, Power and...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/21

In today’s episode, journalist and author Joey D'Urso joins us to discuss the themes of his new book More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power. D'Urso travelled across the globe from Birmingham to Belgrade and Medellin and Mumbai, to uncover how the colours, crests and sponsors of football teams reflect and good and the bad of of the places they represent. He was joined in conversation by Conor Boyle, Head of Programming at Intelligence Squared. (edited) Learn

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33:38

How Geography Explains Our World, with Tim Marshall

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/19

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. Geography explains why Donald Trump wants to control Greenland. Greenland is of strategic military importance given it sits in the Arctic Ocean along the shortest route for Russian

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14:14

The Specialist | The Untold Story of the Shredded...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/18

This is an episode of The Specialist, produced by Intelligence Squared in partnership with Sotheby's. In The Specialist, explore the significance and journey of an extraordinary work through the eyes of those that know it best. The shredding of Banksy’s Girl with Balloon live at auction in 2018 has gone down in art history. Alex Branczik, Chairman and Head of Modern & Contemporary Art Europe and Asia, reveals how Sotheby’s navigated the newly titled Love is in the Bin through a media storm and into

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51:37

How will Trump’s tariff war impact the global...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/17

What happens when the world’s biggest economy turns its back on global trade? In today's episode, host Adam McCauley is joined by renowned financial journalist and economist Philip Coggan to examine the far-reaching consequences of Donald Trump’s trade war. Drawing parallels with Churchill’s economic decisions in the early 20th century, Coggan argues Trump’s tariff measures and isolationist rhetoric argues that we are witnessing the dismantling of a global economic order that has underpinned

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32:30

The Search for a Jewish Homeland in Texas, with...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/15

On June 7th 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews sets sail not to Jerusalem or New York, as many on board have dreamt, but to Texas. The man who persuades the passengers to go is David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell's great-grandfather. It marks the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when 10,000 Jews fled to Texas in the lead-up to WWI. In today's episode historian and author Rachel Cockerell tells this fascinating story in conversation with James McAuley, journalist

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41:46

What can Charlottesville teach us about America’s...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/13

In August 2017, over a thousand neo-Nazis, fascists, Klan members, and neo-Confederates descended on a small southern city to protest the pending removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. What happened in Charlottesville—and why did so few see it coming? What does it reveal about the myths we tell ourselves about America? In this episode, we speak with Deborah Baker, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Charlottesville, about the harrowing events of August 2017, when a violent far-right rally turned

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51:47

Why does nobody understand quantum physics? With...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/12

If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events ... Or Subscribe

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42:14

What if Globalisation Fails? with Ben Chu

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/10

What happens if globalisation fails? Can nations truly stand alone in an interconnected world? Is the new race for national self-sufficiency a path to real security, or a dangerous illusion? In this episode, we’re joined by economics journalist Ben Chu, author of Exile Economics: What Happens if Globalisation Fails, to unpack the shifting tides of the global economy. He speaks to Conor Boyle, Head of Programming at Intelligence Squared about what’s driving this great unravelling—and what it could

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67:03

Classic Debate: Neville Chamberlain Did The Right Thing

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/08

If ever a politician got a bum rap it’s Neville Chamberlain. He has gone down in history as the British prime minster whose policy of appeasement in the 1930s allowed the Nazis to flourish unopposed. He has never been forgiven for ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the Munich Agreement of September 1938, and for returning home triumphantly declaring “peace for our time”. The very word “appeasement” is now synonymous with him, signifying a craven refusal to stand up to bullies and aggressors

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40:33

Are bureaucrats a force for good? With Michael Lewis...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/07

The concept of government is under attack. In the United States, Donald Trump has fired tens of thousands of federal workers; ignored congressional statutes; insulted judges; and allowed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, access to sensitive government information in a slash-and-burn campaign against the US government. In June 2025 Michael Lewis, the renowned author of bestselling non-fiction masterpieces including Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys and Liar’s Poker, came to the Intelligence

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40:50

Are bureaucrats a force for good? With Michael Lewis...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/05

The concept of government is under attack. In the United States, Donald Trump has fired tens of thousands of federal workers; ignored congressional statutes; insulted judges; and allowed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, access to sensitive government information in a slash-and-burn campaign against the US government.In June 2025 Michael Lewis, the renowned author of bestselling non-fiction masterpieces including Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys and Liar’s Poker, came to the Intelligence

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14:52

The Specialist | The Rediscovery of Rubens’ The...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/04

This is an episode of The Specialist, produced by Intelligence Squared in partnership with Sotheby's. In The Specialist, explore the significance and journey of an extraordinary work through the eyes of those that know it best. Rubens’ early masterpiece The Massacre of the Innocents was hidden away for nearly 250 years. George Gordon, Deputy Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe and Co-Chairman of Old Master Paintings & Drawings Worldwide, spearheaded its discovery, attribution and triumphant sale. More than

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48:05

Ctrl, Alt, Delusion: Resetting Reality in the Manosphere

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/04

Today’s episode is the recording of our recent panel Ctrl, Alt, Delusion: Resetting Reality in the Manosphere, live at SXSW London, in partnership with Sage & Jester. Sage & Jester is an impact-led arts production company that exposes manipulation and misinformation. At Sage & Jester, entertainment sparks critical thinking. Their work blends wisdom and wit to entertain, enlighten, and help you harness your internal BS detector. They're not just storytellers, they are catalysts for a more informed,

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39:36

The Genius Myth, with Helen Lewis and Armando...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/07/01

The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist. The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor. You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Florida rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis joined us to unravel a word that we all use — without really questioning what it means. In conversation with acclaimed satirist and

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40:09

The Genius Myth, with Helen Lewis and Armando...

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/06/30

The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist. The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor. You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Florida rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis joined us to unravel a word that we all use — without really questioning what it means. In conversation with acclaimed satirist and

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34:20

Yardsticks For Failure, with Ivo Graham (Part Two)

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/06/28

After coming last by quite such a distance on Taskmaster Series 15, and seeing his emotional frailties laid bare in a series of memes of him with his head in his hands, Ivo Graham is adapting to an increasingly irreversible reputation as a man better known for his chaos than his comedy.His new book Yardsticks For Failure is a map of the brain behind the breakdowns; a deep dive into the various facepalms of Ivo’s recent past, and a live diary of his unravelling present, where his solution to the

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36:55

Yardsticks For Failure, with Ivo Graham (Part One)

Intelligence Squared ·

2025/06/27

After coming last by quite such a distance on Taskmaster Series 15, and seeing his emotional frailties laid bare in a series of memes of him with his head in his hands, Ivo Graham is adapting to an increasingly irreversible reputation as a man better known for his chaos than his comedy. His new book Yardsticks For Failure is a map of the brain behind the breakdowns; a deep dive into the various facepalms of Ivo’s recent past, and a live diary of his unravelling present, where his solution to the

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355 results

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