Intelligence Squared

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

Kristian Rönn is CEO and co-founder of Normative, a start-up which provides carbon-accounting software for businesses. His young company is official software provider of the UN-backed SME Climate Hub initiative, and he joins economist and broadcaster Linda Yueh to explain how adding up the cost of our impact on the environment needs to start today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Russia amasses tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s northern and eastern border fears are mounting that President Putin plans to invade the country. The stakes could not be higher, and each move by both Russia and its military rivals in the West will have potentially catastrophic consequences for the country caught in the crossfire: Ukraine. Is there another option? In this programme, we debate the motion: The West Should Seek a Compromise with Russia Over Ukraine. Joining us to discuss it is Anatol Lieven, Senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC and author of Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry. We're also joined by Chris Miller, Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to Asia from Peter the Great to Putin. Chair for this debate is Larisa Brown, Defence Editor for The Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Justin Webb is a familiar voice to many radio listeners. He has been co-presenting the BBC’s flagship morning current-affairs show, The Today programme, for over a decade. His new memoir, The Gift of a Radio: My Childhood and other Train Wrecks, is an unflinching but darkly humorous account of an often turbulent upbringing. He joins fellow radio journalist and podcast producer Poppy Damon to discuss the book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Professor Guy Leschziner's new book, The Man Who Tasted Words, seeks to shed light on our experiences of the different senses. In the book, Guy meets individuals such as Valeria, for whom music is accompanied by colours and James, after which the book is named: a man who tastes words. The new title follows Guy's previous book on the mysteries of sleep, The Nocturnal Brain. He joins broadcaster, author and science communicator Helen Czerski to talk about it all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In business, there are some jobs that are talked about more opaquely in public discourse than others. Think Military Drone Operator or Industrial Slaughterhouse Manager, for example. These are roles that can raise ethical questions that might take longer than a lunch break to explain. Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality, is the new book from American journalist Eyal Press, which explores the nature of some of those harder to justify jobs, which Eyal says are perceived as 'dirty work' by the rest of society. Eyal is joined by Rosamund Urwin, journalist for the Sunday Times, to talk about the book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With proposed new legislation in the UK currently making its way through Parliament designed to protect internet users from harmful content, for this week's Intelligence Squared Sunday Debate we ask: can the internet be made safe? Joining us to discuss it is tech writer and podcaster Jamie Bartlett, MP Margaret Hodge and online safety campaigner David Babbs. Our chair for the debate is the investigative reporter and broadcaster, Manveen Rana. This episode contains strong language and themes that some listeners may find distressing. Listener discretion is advised. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andrea Elliott is the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and New York Times investigative reporter who spent nearly a decade following the journey of one family living on the poverty line in Brooklyn. Elliott's book, Invisible Child, tells that story, focusing on Dasani Coates, a child moving from homeless shelter to homeless shelter with her tight-knit family. A reflection on the extremities of America's wealth gap between rich and poor and also how racism threads through the country's approach to welfare, the book is also a study on how Dasani has managed to shine while growing up surrounded by adversity. Joining Andrea to discuss the book is novelist Alex Preston, author of In Love and War and As Kingfishers Catch Fire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Traditional conflict – fought with guns, bombs, and drones – has become almost too expensive to wage, too unpopular at home, and too difficult to manage. So nations have innovated. Russia wages hybrid warfare on Ukraine. The US threatens Iran with further sanctions. China spends billions buying political influence abroad. The world seems to be heading for a new era of permanent low-level conflict, often unnoticed, undeclared and unending. Mark Galeotti is Honorary Professor at UCL and a specialist in politics, criminology, security studies, international relations and anthropology. His recent book, The Weaponisation of Everything, is a ground-breaking survey of this new way of war. Joining Mark to discuss the book and his work is Carl Miller, Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Zuckerberg may have gone all-in on the concept of the metaverse recently but he's actually a bit late to the conversation. Herman Narula is CEO and co-founder of Improbable, who since 2012 have created the frameworks for building virtual worlds for clients ranging from video-game studios to governments. He joins Carl Miller, Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos, to discuss how the metaverse could change the ways we do business in future and why virtual worlds require as much careful consideration as our physical one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The 2022 Winter Olympics have just opened in Beijing. Not for the first time in Olympic history, the Games will begin amid controversy over the host nation. China is regularly criticised over its record on human rights, most recently over its systematic oppression of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority. Nations such as the US, Canada, Australia and the UK are undertaking a diplomatic boycott of the event, but do boycotts in sports work? Joining us to discuss it is Laura McAllister, Professor of Public Policy at Cardiff University. Laura is Board Director at the Football Association of Wales Trust, Deputy Chair of UEFA's Women's Football Committee and former captain of the national women’s football team of Wales. Joining Laura is Fred Frommer, sports historian, author and writer, who regularly focuses on the intersection of sports and politics for publications including The Washington Post and The New York Times. Hosting the discussion is Andrew Mueller, journalist and foreign affairs specialist, whose own book, Carn, looks at the history of a game dear to his heart: Australian Rules football. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Megan Nolan’s debut novel, Acts of Desperation, was hailed as a masterpiece by the literary world when it was published in 2021. Searingly honest and darkly amusing, it tells the story of an obsessive relationship. Written in glimmering prose, it charts a young woman’s elation as she falls in love and the obsession, anxiety and self-doubt that ensue. Nolan is also an acclaimed journalist and essayist whose writing appears in The New Statesman, The Guardian and The New York Times. She's joined by fellow journalist and author of the dark satire, How To Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie, to discuss her work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis in 2020 provoked a moment of cultural reckoning in the US and a wave of outrage across the globe. Amid those scenes, author and activist Kimberly Jones filmed a video on the streets of Atlanta in which she distilled 450 years of social and economic oppression of black communities in the US into a seven-minute viral speech named How Can We Win. It's now inspired the similarly named book, How We Can Win: Race, History and Changing the Money Game That's Rigged, which expands on those ideas. Kimberly joins author, broadcaster and financial educator Alvin Hall to discuss the book and the future of civil rights in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Naomi Stanford is an expert in creating models to make organisations work better. Having begun in her career creating organisation design for large multinational companies such as British Airways and Marks and Spencer, she has gone on to help shape workflow in the public sector for both the US and UK governments. She is the author of several books, the latest of which is a revised edition of Designing Organisations: Why It Matters and Ways to Do it Well, published in collaboration with The Economist. She speaks to broadcaster, author and specialist in economic policy, Linda Yueh, about how to design businesses better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since the hardline militant group recaptured the Afghan capital Kabul in August 2021, the question of how Western powers should deal with the Taliban has become one with no easy answers. The Taliban is a fundamentalist movement, whose ideology has spawned violence and terrorism both inside and outside of Afghanistan. However, the country it now governs is one in need of urgent aid, where the plights of women and minority groups abandoned in a hasty retreat by the West mean that a refusal to engage by Western powers could become a disastrous long-term foreign policy error. For this debate, we ask: should the West work with the Taliban? Our guests are Shabnam Nasimi, Policy Advisor to the Minister of Afghan Resettlement in the UK. She is also Director of Afghan Witness, a platform dedicated to Human Rights reporting from Afghanistan. Joining Shabnam is Christina Lamb OBE, Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Sunday Times, Global Fellow for the Woodrow Wilson International Center, and author of books including Farewell Kabul, and Our Bodies, Their Battlefield. Chairing the debate is journalist, investigative reporter and broadcaster, Manveen Rana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Art historian, printmaker and writer Dr Amy Jeffs is joined in conversation by author and journalist Charlotte Higgins to discuss how ancient myths and legends are constantly retold and reimagined by new storytellers. Amy Jeffs' book, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain, is a retelling of 30 medieval myths and legends. Charlotte Higgins' book, Greek Myths: A New Retelling, provides a refreshed narrative by focusing on the perspective of women in the stories of Ancient Greece, with illustrations from Turner Prize-winning artist Chris Ofili. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Foreign policy and national security expert Fiona Hill is a go-to voice in Washington for understanding the longstanding tensions between the US and Russia. Her latest book, There Is Nothing For You Here, is part memoir, part reflection on how factors ranging from deindustrialisation to disenfranchisement over the course of decades have left a swathe of voters in nations such as the US, UK and Russia, open to populist policies and strongman leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr Christian Busch has spent his career studying chance, serendipity, and how to maximise opportunity. He is director of the Center for Global Affairs' Global Economy Program at New York University and his new book, Connect the Dots, analyses the art and science of creating good luck. He joins journalist Rosamund Urwin to talk about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the new film, Munich – The Edge of War, hits Netflix screens starring Jeremy Irons as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain negotiating on the brink of World War Two in 1938, we revisit an archive debate discussing that pivotal moment in history. Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum is joined by a collection of celebrated historians to debate whether Chamberlain did the right thing in an impossible situation or appeased a dictator, leading to the disastrous years of conflict that followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roopa Farooki is a doctor, author and creative-writing lecturer, whose new book, Everything Is True, tells the story of her first 40 days treating patients during the pandemic in the UK. She speaks with paediatrician and broadcaster Dr Guddi Singh about the reality of working in medicine during a global health crisis and the challenges of capturing the full scope of that experience in words on the page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Natalie Livingstone’s recently published book, The Women of Rothschild, tells the lesser known stories of the women who have played pivotal roles in one of the world’s most storied family dynasties throughout history. She joins journalist, author and former Editor-in-Chief of Tatler, Catherine Ostler, to discuss the book and its protagonists, who range from hostesses and diplomats to political movers and shakers influencing the likes of Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Queen Victoria and Albert Einstein along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zillah Byng-Thorne is CEO of Future, the UK’s biggest magazine publishing group. With a stable of over 160 titles across print and online including recent acquisitions such as Wallpaper and The Week, Future is a truly multifaceted business and its CEO has also returned the group to record profits in recent years. She talks to Jeremy Leslie, Creative Director of the site, design consultancy and shop covering all things magazines: magCulture, to discuss how to keep a major publishing business moving forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether we call it Facebook or the recently coined Meta, the Silicon Valley tech giant founded by Mark Zuckerberg has rarely been out of the headlines since its inception over a decade ago and rarely have those headlines been good news. From Cambridge Analytica to the United States Capitol attack, the company's utopian ideals of connecting up society seem to often have the opposite effect. However, millions of people use it to lead their daily lives, from staying in touch with each other to building businesses on its networks. Is it time to break up Facebook? To find out, economist and broadcaster Linda Yueh is joined by Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, and Sinan Aral, Professor of Management, IT, Marketing and Data Science at MIT, and author of The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy and Our Health – and How We Must Adapt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lea Ypi grew up in Albania during the 1980s and 1990s, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe. Almost impossible to visit and nearly impossible to leave, during that era it was a place of queuing and scarcity, political executions and secret police. But to Ypi, it was home. People were equal, neighbours helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world. She joins award-winning foreign correspondent and author Luke Harding to discuss her memoir, Free, and growing up in a country on the brink of a huge transformation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's highly polarised political landscape, Liberalism, somewhere in the middle, often comes under attack from both right and left. Joshua L Cherniss is Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University and his new book, Liberalism in Dark Times, looks at why moderate, centre-ground voices are having to think smarter and talk louder to be heard. He joins journalist and broadcaster Georgina Godwin to discuss both the history and the potential future of Liberalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Olivia Yallop is a strategist, creative and trend analyser, whose new book Break the Internet lifts the lid on how the influencer economy works. She speaks with Carl Miller, Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos about her approach to creating the book, which included visiting a VIP influencer party with a million-follower policy and a trip to influencer bootcamp along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Verdi created some of the most beloved operas of all time. Wagner’s music is in an altogether more intellectual sphere. Back in 2013, Stephen Fry hosted a debate featuring cultural critic and author Norman Lebrecht, novelist and critic Philip Hensher and conductor Paul Wynne Griffiths, plus opera singers Dušica Bijeli and John Tomlinson, to decide which of the two highly influential composers take top billing. — 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.. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2022 looks set to be another seismic year. A new Covid-19 variant threatens to prolong the pandemic. A diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics looks likely to escalate tensions with China. And time is running out to ’keep 1.5 alive’, in spite of the commitments made at COP26. Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times and widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential writers on the global economy. He joins journalist Justin Webb to set out what he sees as the major trends that will shape the world in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices