Intelligence Squared

Author and environmental journalist Eugene Linden's new book, Fire and Flood: A People’s History of Climate Change from 1979 to the Present, lays out how successive US governments managed to delay action on climate change when they should have been raising the alarm. It also looks at why the climate emergency will have a big impact on the global economy and why China and India, which could have taken a lead on renewables, double downed on coal to fuel their industrialisation in the 1990s. Our host for the podcast is the economist and broadcaster Linda Yueh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is it time to abandon the five-day work week? Or is the "five-days on, two days off" cadence of work and rest more important than ever? This event was organised in partnership with Slack, your digital HQ. Slack connects your teams, tools, customers and partners in a digital place that’s fast, flexible and inclusive for a work-from-anywhere world. From FTSE 100 companies to corner shops, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems and drive their business forwards. If you would like to find out more about how Slack are supporting their clients then visit https://www.slack.com/digitalhq for a host of valuable resources! -- Speakers: Bruce Daisley, Elizabeth Uviebinené, Karl Nicholson and Nick Srnicek Host: Anne McElvoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During an era of identity politics, culture wars and increasing awareness of the structural biases that contribute to global inequality, it’s easy to become pessimistic about the possibility of making diverse democracies work. Yascha Mounk is a writer and political scientist whose recent book, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, offers analysis of how our fractured societies can acknowledge the injustices of the past, while moving forward towards conciliation and cooperation. Hosting the discussion is BBC journalist and broadcaster Ritula Shah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We live in a time of greater uncertainty than ever before in human history. We are poised between the twin precipices of climate change and rapidly accelerating technological development. How we manage them will determine whether our future is one where humans will thrive, falter or something in between. Welcome to the Futureverse – brought to you by Intelligence Squared and Y TREE – a space to explore the ideas that will shape our future. In this episode, three leading thinkers come together to debate the motion, ‘Will The World Be A Better Place in 5, 50 and 500 Years?’ The sculptor Sir Antony Gormley champions the role of art in public spaces in a future society that puts community and care at its centre. Climate change activist Clover Hogan argues that the next ten years will be crucial for determining the next 50. Tech entrepreneur and former chief business officer at Google X, Mo Gawdat considers how we can imbue AI with values aligned to those of humanity. Expertly hosted by broadcaster Jon Sopel, this is a conversation that is guaranteed to change the way you think about the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is the West doing enough to help Ukraine? What kind of endgame should Ukraine be seeking – all-out victory over Russia or a negotiated settlement that will allow both sides to claim they have won? To help answer some of these questions, we invited three prominent Ukrainian voices to get the view from the country. Kira Rudik is the MP who went viral on Instagram when she posted a photo of herself wielding a Kalashnikov and urging her fellow citizens to take up arms against the Russian invaders; Michael Bociurkiw, geopolitical analyst and humanitarian; and Olha Poliukhovych, a cultural historian and academic based in Kyiv. This discussion is hosted by broadcaster and academic Philippa Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reportedly the planet's richest person, multibillionaire Elon Musk is currently seeking to buy the World's online public square, Twitter. Should billionaires be able to buy so much influence? For this week's Sunday Debate we revisit a discussion from 2021 investigating just that, when we invited Professor Linsey McGoey of Essex University and Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute go head to head on whether society should tolerate the existence of billionaires. The debate was chaired by Economics Editor at BBC Newsnight, Ben Chu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since the war in Ukraine began, dwindling remaining hopes of maintaining even the outward appearance of a free democratic process in Russia have been all but eliminated by the Kremlin regime. Joining us on the programme to discuss the dangerous game of voicing dissent in Russia is activist and journalist Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of murdered Russian politician Boris Nemtsov, and Ben Noble, Associate Professor of Russian Politics at University College London and co-author of Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future? Hosting the discussion is Polina Ivanova, correspondent for the Financial Times covering Russia and Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the second part of our analysis of one of the most tense elections in Europe of recent years, we hear from Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief at The Economist and author of Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation. Sophie is joined by foreign-policy writer and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Ben Judah, for a discussion about where France is headed next on both the World stage and closer to home. Hosting the discussion is Rosamund Urwin, Media Editor for the Sunday Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greg Hoffman spent nearly three decades building the Nike brand. In the process he helped transform a shoe company into an identity that resonates the world over. His recent book, Emotion by Design, opens up his philosophy and shares what he has learned from a life in marketing and turbo-charging brands. Hosting the discussion is economist, author and broadcaster, Linda Yueh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emmanuel Macron has become the first sitting president of France to be re-elected since 2002. But while Macron won the election, France’s far-right and its leader Marine Le Pen has now boldly established itself in the political mainstream. In his victory speech, President Macron acknowledged that, “Many of my compatriots voted for me, not to back my ideas, but to keep out those of the far right.” For this week's Sunday Debate, we discuss whether it is the formidable figure of Marine Le Pen who is redefining French politics or is it Macron, swallowing the middle ground at the expense of his more moderate peers on the left and right, who has paved the way for more populist rhetoric and extreme candidates that now occupy the centre ground? We invited two guests to discuss it. Vincent Martigny is Professor of Political science at the University of Nice, and Jean-Yves Camus is an expert in political radicalism and a Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. Hosting the discussion is the cultural historian and broadcaster Shahidha Bari. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Morten Christiansen is Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. Together, they've written The Language Game, a new book which explores the science and psychology of language and some of its mysteries too. Hosting the discussion is journalist Christine Ro, whose work covers areas ranging from science and culture to international development. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris Hirst, Global CEO of advertising group Havas Creative, cuts through the bullshit and gets to the heart of modern leadership in this straight-talking podcast brought to you by Intelligence Squared. In this episode, Christ Hirst speaks to Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Director of Communications - a post he held for an infamous 11 days under President Donald Trump in 2017. The majority of Scaramucci’s career has actually been spent outside politics. He is the founder of global investment firm SkyBridge Capital. In 2011, Scaramucci received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award and in 2016 was listed in Worth magazine's "100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance". He spoke to Chris Hirst about leading as an entrepreneur, having the tenacity to fail upwards, working for Donald Trump - and what he would do if Trump ran for President again. If you enjoyed this podcast please let us know what you think by rating and reviewing No Bullsh*t Leadership on Apple Podcasts. For updates on the series follow @intelligence2 and @chrishirst on Twitter. Producer & Editor: Bella Soames; Technical Support: Mark Roberts. Chris Hirst is author of the award-winning book No Bulls*ht Leadership: Why the World Needs More Everyday Leaders and Why That Leader Is You. Podnotes: 00:00 Intro 04:20 Your leadership style 06:02 The word you would delete from the bullsh*t business jargon dictionary 06:30 The leader you most admire 7:13 The best advice you’ve ever been given 10:14 Were you naive when you took the job at the White House? 13:09 Being fired and rehired by Goldman Sachs 17:35 Learnings from your first job 20:23 Differences in leadership as entrepreneur vs. an established corporate environment 23:30 Why you were always going to become an entrepreneur 26:32 How you ended up working for Donald Trump 30:48 Getting it wrong on Donald Trump 32:39 The influence of social media on modern leadership styles 34:27 The societal problems that made Donald Trump electable 35:53 Will Donald Trump run for president again? 38:40 Suffering from self-doubt 40:40 Getting it wrong on the impact of the pandemic in early 2020 41:55 What next? Connect with Chris Hirst on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishirst/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrishirst and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrishirst_leadership/ Watch exclusive content and original videos from Chris Hirst on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNC4qT90ArKOuKV8B0LWTWA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

George Packer is journalist and author whose words, during 15 years as staff writer for the New Yorker and latterly at the Atlantic, have helped frame American public life. His latest book is Last Best Hope: America In Crisis and Renewal, which is now finding its way to shelves as a paperback, and reflects on the polarised nature of US politics and what could be done to bring the two sides closer to consensus. Hosting the discussion is Justin Webb from BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Cowley is Editor of British political weekly, The New Statesman. He’s also an author and his latest book, Who Are We Now? Stories of Modern England, is a timely reflection on the identity of his home nation. The book follows both individual stories of everyday life and the broad arc of national politics over the past 25 years spanning the ascent of the Tony Blair government to Tory austerity, Brexit and the pandemic. Hosting the discussion is Kavita Puri, journalist, broadcaster and author of the book and radio programme, Partition Voices, which explores issues of identity within the British Asian community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Moses and the Ten Commandments, the parting of the Red Sea. These are a few of the stories from the Old Testament. And then there’s the New Testament, with its account of the life of Jesus, the Good Samaritan, the raising of Lazarus and the feeding of the five thousand. Whatever our creed or background, these stories are embedded in our consciousness. They inform our everyday speech and much of our art, music and literature. But which of these books is the greater? For this archive episode, we gathered expert voices to consider the question including writer and broadcaster Anne Atkins, Booker Prize-winning novelist and journalist Howard Jacobson, Professor of Theology and Culture in the African Diaspora Robert Beckford, and Anglican priest and presenter the Rev. Richard Coles. Hosting the discussion is broadcaster, comedian and author David Baddiel. 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 [email protected] or Tweet us @intelligence2. And if you’d like to get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist and writer Dipo Faloyin's new book, Africa Is Not A Country, looks to challenge overly simplistic narratives for one of the most culturally diverse regions on Earth. The African continent is home to over 2,000 languages – from Igbo to Xhosa, Franglais to Yoruba – and comprises countries as politically varied as post-Arab Spring Egypt, fast-growing Ghana, and increasingly authoritarian Rwanda. Joining Dipo to discuss it is our host, the award-winning journalist Yousra Elbagir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back for a third series, Alannah Weston, Chairman of Selfridges Group, speaks to inspiring leaders driving transformational systems change to put sustainability at the heart of their businesses. In this episode, Alannah is joined by Andy Cato, co-founder of Wildfarmed. Andy is a Grammy-nominated musician, one half of the incredible Groove Armada. In 2006, he read an article about the dire state of industrial food production, which ended with the line, “If you don’t like the system, don’t depend on it.” Andy sold his music rights, bought a farm, and has spent his life since finding a more restorative and sustainable way of growing food. Together, they discuss how following natural systems for soil health leads to abundance and how it can transform our ailing agricultural system. How to Lead a Sustainable Business is brought to you by Selfridges Group and Intelligence Squared. If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer and audio documentary maker Hana Walker-Brown’s new book, A Delicate Game, investigates the reasons for sport’s troubling relationship with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a type of dementia caused by repeated injuries to the head. Walker-brown interviewed athletes including former rugby star Steve Thompson, 43, who has no memory of playing in the World Cup final in 2003, and the family of Jeff Astle, the former England football player who died at 59 from dementia caused – an inquest found – by decades of heading leather footballs. Host for this discussion is Joey D’Urso, Investigations Writer for The Athletic UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has started the first war in Europe for a generation, defying the post-Cold War international rules-based order and inflicting great suffering on millions of civilians in the process. Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times and his latest book is The Age of the Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy Around the World. The book focuses on how we have arrived in an era in which figures such as Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro, and, of course, Vladimir Putin, have managed to ascend to power and stay there. Hosting this discussion is Carl Miller, Research Director at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank, Demos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's podcast is from our friends at Intelligence Squared Germany who hosted a live debate in Berlin last week on whether the EU's 'Green Deal', a plan to deliver both economic growth and carbon neutrality, is really achievable. The debate was held in partnership with The European Council on Foreign Relations and featured Franziska Brantner of the German Green Party taking on renowned climate activist Dr. Tadzio Müller. It was hosted by BBC journalist Damien McGuinness. — 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 [email protected] or Tweet us @intelligence2. And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oded Galor’s remarkable new book, The Journey of Humanity, can feel like seeing the world with fresh eyes. His analysis of the origins of wealth and inequality is compelling, original and, especially during these troubled times, refreshingly optimistic. Speaking across the political divide the book sets out a convincing blueprint for how a better life can be had by everyone on the planet. Galor, an economist at Brown University, upends many of our assumptions about human progress. For nearly all of human history humans lived a subsistence existence but something astonishing happened 200 years ago and the living standards of nearly all humans have skyrocketed – albeit unevenly – since then. Hosting the discussion is journalist, author and former BBC News Editorial Director, Kamal Ahmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Food is the best medicine, believes genetics expert Tim Spector, but most of the dietary advice that we are given is wrong, he claims. In his latest bestselling book, Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food Is Wrong, he argues that the most dangerous myth of all about food is the assumption that we all respond to the same foods in the same way and the food industry's oversimplified approach to diet. For this discussion, Tim is joined by Dan Saladino, the award-winning food writer and broadcaster. Dan's new book, Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them, is a love letter to the world’s great food traditions and a wake-up call to protect the planet’s genetic biodiversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the world facing a climate crisis, how can travel and tourism be part of the solution? For this programme, Intelligence Squared partners with Singapore Tourism Board to bring together cross-industry experts to discuss how the travel and tourism industry can go beyond sustainable storytelling and take real steps to help tackle some of the challenges facing the environment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Blockchain technology has gone mainstream. It earns huge amounts of column inches and airtime. Stories abound of Bitcoin millionaires and multimillion-dollar ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). New cryptocurrencies are launched every week. People who don’t entirely understand what they’re buying are rushing to purchase Bitcoin for fear of missing out, and recently the UK's Royal Mint announced its first ever blockchain-based non-fungible token, an NFT. Back in 2018, Intelligence Squared gathered crypto specialists to debate whether blockchain technology has a legitimate future or not, including Jamie Bartlett, author and analyst on the politics of the internet, blockchain expert Primavera De Filippi, Vit Jedlička, President of the micronation Liberland, and crypto journalist David Gerard. The host for this discussion was journalist, author and former BBC News Editorial Director, Kamal Ahmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following the fall of communism in 1989, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama shot to fame with his thesis about the ‘end of history’ – the idea that the entire world was set on a path towards universal liberalism. But 30 years on, liberalism is under attack from both the Right and the Left – and from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Professor Fukuyama was joined in conversation by John Gray, the British political philosopher, who rejects the idea of a universal momentum towards liberal values and human progress. Despite the view of many that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the post-Cold War era, Fukuyama believes that it is a wake-up call for the West to rekindle the spirit of 1989, while Gray holds that the idea that liberalism will ever triumph is a mirage. Chairing the discussion is the journalist, author and broadcaster, Helen Lewis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick Higham is a journalist and author known to TV viewers in the UK as a former correspondent for BBC News and also as regular host of its literary interview show: Meet the Author. His new book, The Mercenary River: Private Greed, Public Good, A History of London's Water, tells the story of a resource in the city many take for granted. But the flow of water, like any natural resource, has often been fiercely contested, diverted and exploited by profiteers in London over the centuries. Our host for this discussion is the author of books including As Kingfishers Catch Fire and Winchelsea, Alex Preston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over four million people have fled Ukraine since Russia's invasion began. The support for Ukranians has been compassionate and heartwarming but it has also raised questions about why those fleeing North Africa and the Middle East are not afforded the same degree of sympathy. Sally Hayden is an award-winning journalist and photographer, and Africa Correspondent for The Irish Times. Her new book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route, tells the stories of refugees making perilous journeys and seeks to investigate the murky politics that means not all asylum seekers are given the same opportunities. Our host for this discussion is the economist, broadcaster and writer, Linda Yueh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How we save the planet is clear: we need to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees in order to avoid doing irreversible damage. But exactly what should we do to reduce damaging greenhouse gas emissions? In recent years, hydrogen has emerged as a promising source of clean energy. It has been called ‘freedom fuel’, the ‘Swiss army knife’ of the energy transition, and a ‘silver bullet’ for decarbonisation. But is it as simple as that? In this debate we separate fact from fiction with energy experts Barry Carruthers, hydrogen director of ScottishPower; Fiona Harvey, The Guardian’s environment correspondent; and Professor Nigel Brandon, Chair in Sustainable Development in Energy at Imperial College London. Chairing the debate is Kamal Ahmed, journalist, author and former BBC News Editorial Director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are in an era of crisis, collapse, and reactionary tyrants, argues Laurie Penny, but we are also witnessing a transformation: a revolutionary change in how we define gender, sex, consent and whose bodies matter. In her new book, Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback, Laurie offers an urgent analysis of this moment of sexual politics we are living through. Our host for the discussion is cultural historian and broadcaster Shahidha Bari. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has laid bare the West’s reliance on Russian oil and gas. Around 40 per cent of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, while some 7 per cent of US oil is Russian. Journalists Javier Blas and Jack Farchy’s new book, The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources, tells the story of how trading commodities such as these has shaped the global financial landscape and why we find ourselves in a pivotal moment in which geopolitical and economic relationships are being tested. Investigative journalist and Manveen Rana speaks with Javier and Jack about the book and its wider themes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bestselling investigative journalist Oliver Bullough discusses his recent book, Butler to the World, which details how Britain became a favoured destination for funnelling the finances of oligarchs and the globe's super rich. He joins fellow journalist and broadcaster Manveen Rana to talk about the book and how international finance plays into the current situation in Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this debate from the Intelligence Squared archive, we head back to 2020, when we invited journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, academic and writer Azadeh Moaveni, the Saudi political analyst Salman al-Ansari and former Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan to debate the motion: Iran is Not Our Enemy. The discussion touches on many issues that hold relevance in the current moment, ranging from the effectiveness of sanctions to the capabilities of nuclear-armed nations. The debate was chaired by the BBC's Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Professor Lewis Gordon is a leading philosopher and Department Head at the University of Connecticut who believes that intellectual thought matters as much as political activism in the struggle to achieve racial justice. His recent book Fear of Black Consciousness is an exploration that combines academic theory and also his ideas on pop culture to create a broad and thought-provoking study, Gordon is joined in conversation by Professor Paul Gilroy, author, one of the world’s foremost theorists of race and racism, and Founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism & Racialisation at University College London. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin cast the female animal as passive, coy, monogamous and submissive: in other words, in the shape of a Victorian housewife. Meanwhile the male animal became the main event, the dominant driver in his theory of evolutionary change. But according to a revolution in zoology and evolutionary biology, this is all wrong. Lucy Cooke, zoologist, explorer, and author, joins host Helen Czerski to set the record straight and discuss her new book, Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal. Her research has taken her from Madagascar to Peru where she’s made discoveries about female moles, meerkats and killer whales, dispelling biological myths around passivity, weakness and submissiveness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, a columnist for The New Statesman, and has been a regular contributor to the Talking Politics podcast. Her new book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, looks at decades of geopolitical history that have fed into our current moment: one of war and conflict, nations competing for dwindling natural resources, and the climate emergency casting a long shadow. She joins journalist and author Andrew Mueller to discuss how we got here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Banks, energy suppliers and oligarchs are just some of the targets that sanctions enforced by the West are looking to put pressure on in order to halt Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. In this edition of The Sunday Debate, we ask how effective the financial freeze caused by sanctions can be in comparison to the potential impact of a fully fledged military intervention. Joining us is Bill Browder, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, and Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins. Chairing the debate is journalist and broadcaster Philippa Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cal Flyn’s Islands of Abandonment was one of the UK’s bestselling books of 2021. It was the Sunday Times Science and Environment book of the year and won her the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. In this episode she talks with broadcaster and science communicator Helen Czerski about the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in only tiny numbers – and about what happens when humanity’s impact on nature is forced into retreat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Simpson is the BBC’s World Affairs Editor and has dedicated his life to telling stories from the frontline having joined the BBC more than 50 years ago as a reporter. In this special episode, Chris Hirst, Global CEO of advertising group Havas Creative, meets the veteran journalist to discuss having a front seat for some of the most significant moments in modern history; from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Iraq War in 2003, where he was seriously injured in a friendly fire incident on the road to Baghdad. His career has taken him to more than 120 countries, including 30 war zones, interviewing global leaders such as Nelson Mandela and also tyrants including Saddam Hussein along the way. Most recently he returned from Finland, where he was reporting on Russia's invasion of Ukraine for his new programme, Unspun World. If you enjoyed this podcast: please let us know what you think by rating and reviewing No Bullsh*t Leadership on Apple Podcasts. For updates on the series follow @intelligence2 and @chrishirst on Twitter. Producer/Editor: Bella Soames; Technical Support: Mark Roberts. Chris Hirst is author of the award-winning book No Bullsh*t Leadership: Why the World Needs More Everyday Leaders and Why That Leader is You. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist and author John Preston is a master of storytelling, with his novels The Dig and A Very English Scandal having been snapped up for both Netflix and BBC adaptations. His most recent book is Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell, which tells the story of the rise and fall of the infamous 20th-century UK newspaper and media magnate. Preston joins journalist Mark Mardell to discuss the book and explore its themes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Technology might move fast but the fears surrounding it remain ever-present. Back in 2015 Intelligence Squared gathered both tech evangelists and technology naysayers to debate how robots and AI might swallow up jobs in years to come. The speakers included economist, commentator and author George Magnus, internet entrepreneur and author Andrew Keen, technology entrepreneur, presidential advisor and economist Dr Pippa Malmgren, and author and journalist Walter Isaacson. Chairing the debate was journalist and broadcaster Zeinab Badawi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether it's arguing over cancel culture, mask-wearing or what to do with statues, the culture wars now seem to be a constantly reappearing flashpoint in public discourse. Acclaimed writer and podcaster Jon Ronson was curious to learn how this phenomenon had come about and has spent the last year creating the hit radio and podcast series, Things Fell Apart, for BBC Radio 4, exploring the history of the culture wars. For this discussion Jon is joined in conversation by comedian and writer David Baddiel to explore the origin stories of the culture wars and where they might be headed next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between 1500 and 1866, 12.5 million enslaved Africans were transported by ship from Africa to the Americas as part of the Middle Passage crossing. Some 1.8 million of them died, their bodies thrown into the Atlantic, while the others who survived undertook journeys of misery and terror – chained together, starved, and surrounded by disease, to be sold into slavery and forced to work in brutal, dehumanising conditions. The slave mutinies that took place on these ships were the beginning of a long history of Black resistance. In February 2022, the World Monuments Fund in partnership with Intelligence Squared brought together a panel of experts to explore key sites in Black history and illustrate the pivotal role heritage can play in teaching us about underrepresented narratives from the past. We began our journey by examining buildings connected to slavery across Africa and the Caribbean, focusing on the ports, trading posts, and slave forts that were the starting points of the transatlantic slave trade. Moving forward in time we then discussed the struggle for emancipation, highlighting lesser known sites where newly freed slaves took refuge. Our trajectory ended with the landmark places in Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and across the Black Belt in the U.S. that stood at the heart of the civil rights movement. These include churches and a barber shop where historic meetings took place between representatives of the Black and white populations of Montgomery in the beginning of the civil rights era. Our panel unlocked the stories associated with these historic buildings and their importance in ensuring that the long struggle for racial equality is never forgotten. CHAIR: Yassmin Abdel-Magied - Writer and broadcaster Panel: Alberta Whittle - Barbadian-Scottish artist, researcher, and curator Bonnie Greer OBE - Playwright, author, broadcaster and former Deputy Chair, British Museum John Darlington - Executive Director at WMF Britain David Harewood MBE - Actor, director, author, and activist — 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 [email protected] or Tweet us @intelligence2. And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

'Sprakkar' is an ancient Icelandic word meaning extraordinary or outstanding women. It forms the basis of the new book by Eliza Reid, author and co-founder of the Iceland Writers Retreat, who is also the nation's First Lady. Rosamund Urwin from the Sunday Times joins Eliza to discuss the book, which tells the stories of Iceland’s women and also the country’s efforts to elevate them while striving for increased gender equality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Among wine lovers, there is no greater divide than that between Burgundy and Bordeaux. These are the world’s most celebrated wine regions. What separates them and why the great rivalry? Back in 2015 we invited two of the UK's top wine critics, Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson, to debate the issue. Chairing the event was Michelin-starred chef and restauranteur Michel Roux Jr. 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 [email protected] or Tweet us @intelligence2. And if you’d like to get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future. It’s all there, in front of us. It could go wonderfully. Or it could go badly wrong. It will inevitably require our passions and our ingenuity. So how do we see the challenges early on, find solutions and help make the world a better place? For ourselves, for our families, for everyone. Welcome to The Futureverse, a new series brought to you by Intelligence Squared and in partnership with Y TREE. In the first episode of The Futureverse podcast, From the Ancients to AI, host Kamal Ahmed and a panel of experts explore the history of the future as an idea. Dr Aleks Krotoski, social psychologist, researcher and science communicator, explains why planning for the future is at the heart of being human. Dr Amanda Rees, a historian of science based at the University of York, and Alexander Boxer, author of A Scheme of Heaven, look back at the history of the future as a concept; how have we juggled planning and prediction from ancient times through to modernity? And Dirk Helbing, Professor of Computational Social Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, reveals how we might be able to stream data into a giant simulator that could help us predict – and prepare for – events in the future. Come with us into The Futureverse: http://intelligencesquared.com/futureverse For more information and to register to watch an event featuring Sir Antony Gormley, Mo Gawdat and Clover Hogan, please visit: y-tree.com/futureverse Find out more about Dirk’s latest project - how to build a “digital twin” of the Earth, here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358571489 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist and Russia expert Owen Matthews and Radek Sikorski, former foreign minister of Poland, discuss the biggest crisis Europe has faced since the Second World War. In conversation with investigative reporter Manveen Rana, Matthews and Sikorksi explain the background to the crisis and attempt to answer: what does Putin want? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anna Delvey and Simon Leviev, now infamously known as The Fake Heiress and The Tinder Swindler, are two characters who have infiltrated pop culture and gripped Netflix viewers over recent months. Their joint claim to fame? They're both notorious con artists. So why are viewers and listeners so drawn to these stories of true crime? Writer and author Rachel Williams and journalist Erlend Ofte Arntsen were closely involved in the real-life stories that shaped Netflix's The Tinder Swindler and Inventing Anna. They join journalist and broadcaster Manveen Rana to help provide some answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rob Davies is an investigative journalist for The Guardian and his new book, Jackpot, tells the story of how Britain came to be one of the largest gambling markets in the world. The book describes how the mainstreaming of gambling advertising in the early 2000s combined with high-tech microtargeting of online gamblers has meant that the industry today is profiting from preying on the most vulnerable in society. Joining Rob to discuss the book is Joey D'Urso, investigations writer at The Athletic UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 presenter, Helen Czerski. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Canadian novelist and writer Esi Edugyan's latest work is a collection of nonfiction writing, Out of the Sun: Essays at the Crossroads of Race. The book’s five essays discuss the interpretation of Black identity within art and culture across the past few centuries, while also reflecting on the author’s own sense of place as a creative within that ongoing story. Esi is joined by the curator, art historian, writer and presenter, Aindrea Emelife, to discuss the new book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices