Intelligence Squared

Latest Episodes:

Life Lessons from the Early Greeks with Adam Nicolson Jan 21, 2024

Show notes

Adam Nicolson is the writer and author whose past books have explored immersive and at times weighty topics such as our understanding of the Bible and the work of great poets such as Coleridge and Wordsworth. He returns with a new book, How To Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks, which looks at not only the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks but also how the geography of the lands they came from helped shape their thinking. Joining Nicolson in conversation is the writer, academic and broadcaster, Shahidha Bari.

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The Mend is Nigh: Hannah Ritchie on How to Build a Sustainable Planet Jan 19, 2024

Show notes

Hannah Ritchie is the influential data scientist and researcher whose new book adds a rare glimpse of optimism to the conversation surrounding the future health of the climate. Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet asks us to look again at the tools available to us to make an impact on the world's most existential issue – packed with the latest research, practical guidance and enlightening ideas, it’s a book that will make you rethink almost everything you've been told about the environment. Ritchie is deputy editor and lead researcher at Our World in Data and she is also Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford. Therefore, she’s someone who knows how to think smart about big challenges. Joining her in conversation is Tim Harford, senior columnist for the Financial Times, whose most recent book is How to Make the World Add Up.

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Daniel Goleman on How to Reach the Optimal Mindset Jan 17, 2024

Show notes

The psychologist, writer and journalist Daniel Goleman is the author the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence and many more popular titles exploring the workings of the mind. His new book, co-authored with fellow psychologist and academic Cary Cherniss, is Optimal: How to Sustain Excellence Every Day. The book highlights practical methods for applying the principles of emotional intelligence to everyday life so more people can enter an optimal state of high performance – offering a roadmap to how to be your best, every day. Joining Goleman to discuss the book is molecular biologist and science communicator Dr Güneş Taylor, postdoctoral research scientist at The Francis Crick Institute.

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Another Side of the Moon: How the Lunar Landscape Inspires Imagination Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science writer whose words have appeared in titles such as The Atlantic, New Scientist and the New York Times. Her new book is Our Moon. It's both a meticulous scientific account of the forces at play around that big rock in the sky and also a cultural history of how humans on Earth have been inspired by it over millennia. Boyle's book captures the the lengths humanity has gone to in order to create myths and stories around the moon while studying its astronomy and eventually actually visiting it too. Joining Boyle in conversation to discuss the book is neuroscientist and science communicator Dr Daniel Glaser, Director of Engagement at the Royal Institution.

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The Political Thought of Xi Jinping Jan 14, 2024

Show notes

China’s President Xi Jinping is a figure of extraordinary influence around the world but it in the West the nuances and intricacies of his political agenda are less well understood. The Political Thought of Xi Jinping is a new book from Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, and Dr Olivia Cheung, Research Fellow of the China Institute at SOAS University of London. The book draws from Xi Jinping's own words and writings issued in his name to explain his ideas and plans, offering the first comprehensive and critical analysis of what "Xi Jinping Thought" is and whether it should be treated as China's state ideology. Joining Tsang and Cheung in conversation for this episode is Katie Stallard, senior editor for China and global affairs at the New Statesman and author of Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia, and North Korea.

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Sotheby’s Talks: Munch, with Tracey Emin Jan 12, 2024

Show notes

This is an episode of Sotheby's Talks, the podcast that celebrates art, culture, and collecting.

Edvard Munch pioneered Expressionism and embraced life’s most painful experiences to create art: his pursuit of emotional truth changed art forever. Tracey Emin, who has been a major figure in contemporary art for more than 25 years, has always been fascinated by the Norwegian master and, in 2021, she exhibited 25 of her own works alongside Munch’s oils and watercolours at the Royal Academy. In this episode originally recorded at Sotheby’s in London, Emin sat down with Sotheby’s Simon Shaw to talk about the role of women in Munch’s work and to explore why his paintings still have such a compelling hold on us today.

To see the works discussed in this episode, or to watch an extended version of this talk, visit https://sothebys.com/en/series/sothebys-talks/breathe-and-feel-suffer-and-love

To listen to all twelve episodes of Sotheby’s Talks, featuring guests including Marina Abramović, Mary McCartney, Tracey Emin, Paloma Picasso, Julianne Moore, Mary Beard, Celeste, and Helen Fielding, search Sotheby’s Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

And, to step further into the world of Sotheby’s, you can visit any of their galleries around the world; they’re open to the public. For more information, visit sothebys.com.

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How The Female Body Has Driven Evolution Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

Cat Bohannon is a researcher and author with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition. Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind and Science Magazine. Her recent book is Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, which explores how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about the vital role that the female body as played over the course of millions of years. Joining Bohannon to discuss the book is Lucy Cooke, zoologist, presenter and author of Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal.

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Power Grab: David Runciman on the Reach of Corporations, States and AI Jan 08, 2024

Show notes

David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the author of books including The Politics of Good Intentions, Political Hypocrisy and The Confidence Trap. He also hosts the popular Past Present Future podcast. His latest book is The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs. The book argues that states and corporations are the immensely powerful artificial entities that now rule our world, with AI a third frontier about to join an already well established model. Joining Runciman in conversation for this episode is Adam McCauley, Senior Policy Advisor at the Department of National Defence in Canada and a writer on issues such as politics, technology, and the future. McCauley was previously based at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.

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All Talk: How Dialects and Diversity Enrich the Culture of the UK Jan 07, 2024

Show notes

Rob Drummond is Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. His recent book You’re All Talk explores the enormous diversity in our spoken language across the UK to reveal extraordinary insights into how humans operate: how we perceive (and judge) other people and how we would like ourselves to be perceived. Joining Drummond in conversation for this episode is Intelligence Squared’s Executive Producer, Hannah Kaye.

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Fixing France: Nabila Ramdani on How to Repair a Broken Republic Jan 05, 2024

Show notes

Nabila Ramdani is a French-Algerian writer, broadcaster and academic, whose recent book is Fixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republic. Historically, France is a country with ideals that strive for liberty, equality and fraternity but the reality in recent years is something different. Its leader President Macron has cultivated a political landscape with no clear successor ready to carry liberal or centre-ground politics forward. Instead, the next president might come from the far right and inherit a country consumed by polarised politics, institutionalised rioting, economic injustice and paramilitary policing. Can France be fixed? Joining Ramdani in conversation for this episode is Mehreen Khan, former Brussels-based EU Correspondent for the Financial Times and currently Economics Editor for The Times. This interview was recorded in late December, 2023.

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