Intelligence Squared

Latest Episodes:

How To Win a Trade War, with Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown May 28, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, journalist Hannah Lucinda Smith speaks with economists Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown about our new era of global trade wars.

Drawing on their new book How to Win a Trade War, Keynes and Bown shed light on the historical roots of our modern trade infrastructure and how tariffs, export controls and supply chain battles are drastically reshaping the global economy.

The conversation examines the increasingly fraught economic relationship between the US and China, the growing use of economic coercion, and what the future holds for the world stage as countries increasingly treat trade as a strategic weapon rather than a cooperative system.

Soumaya Keynes is an economist and journalist. She is the co-author of How to Win a Trade War and host of the podcast The Economics Show.

Chad Bown is an economist specialising in international trade and economic policy. He served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of State in the Biden administration from January 2024 to January 2025. He is the co-author of How to Win a Trade War.

Hannah Lucinda Smith is a journalist and foreign correspondent reporting on global politics and international affairs.

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How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part Two) May 26, 2026

Show notes

What do we lose when a language dies?

Roughly 7,000 languages are spoken around the world today. Over half of them are expected to vanish in the next century – along with the wealth of information they contain, the family ties they represent, and the psychological benefits they confer.

In May 2026 journalist Sophia Smith Galer joined us live to explore how this mass extinction event is one of the most urgent cultural emergencies we’re facing today.

Drawing on her globe-spanning investigation, How to Kill a Language, Smith Galer shed light on linguicide, its root causes, and what we lose when a language dies. From Ghana to Greece, Ukraine to Ecuador, her research ultimately led her back home: to Italy, where piaśintein, the Gallo-Italian language of her grandparents, is on the brink of vanishing forever.

Smith Galer also discussed the communities bringing their languages back, from Kurdish activists in Iran to Karuk campaigners in the forests of California

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How To Kill A Language, with Sophia Smith Galer (Part One) May 24, 2026

Show notes

What do we lose when a language dies?

In May 2026 journalist Sophia Smith Galer joined us live to explore how this mass extinction event is one of the most urgent cultural emergencies we’re facing today.

Smith Galer also discussed the communities bringing their languages back, from Kurdish activists in Iran to Karuk campaigners in the forests of California

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The Secret Life of Our Organs and How They Keep us Healthy, with Dr Giulia Enders May 23, 2026

Show notes

How can changing the way we breathe lower stress and blood pressure? Why is touch so important for premature babies and ICU patients? And what can our organs teach us about staying healthy?

Dr Giulia Enders, author of the multimillion-selling Gut, returns with a new book, Organ Speak — an exploration of the lungs, skin, immune system, muscles and brain, and the extraordinary ways our organs work together to keep us alive and well.

In this episode, she joins science communicator Dr Emma Yhnell to discuss how exercise really works, the hidden sophistication of the immune system, why humans evolved to sleep and dream, and whether AI can ever compete with the complexity of the human brain.

Dr Giulia Enders is a physician and author. Her new book, Organ Speak: What it Really Means to Listen to Our Bodies, is available online and in stores now.

Dr Emma Yhnell is an academic and science communicator.

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Chasing Aliens, with Jon Ronson and Daniel Lavelle (Part Two) May 21, 2026

Show notes

Are we really alone in the universe?

The question of whether there is extraterrestrial life is one of our oldest questions. And few nations on Earth are more captivated by the prospect of life on Mars than the United States. President Barack Obama recently made headlines by stating he believes aliens are real. And around 41% of Americans believe aliens have made contact with planet Earth.

In May 2026, Orwell Prize-winning journalist Daniel Lavelle joined acclaimed filmmaker and podcaster Jon Ronson to discuss why humans, and Americans in particular, are so obsessed with encountering aliens.

Drawing from Lavelle’s new book, Chasing Aliens, they explored an extraordinary road trip through America’s UFO heartlands – a journey that led Lavelle from fringe believers and interdimensional crystal rituals at the clandestine Skinwalker Ranch, all the way to Harvard astrophysicists and the corridors of government itself. He revealed what he found: not just the truth about UFOs, but something far more unexpected – a deeply moving story about loneliness, belief, and our unshakeable need not to be alone in the cosmos.

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Chasing Aliens, with Jon Ronson and Daniel Lavelle (Part One) May 19, 2026

Show notes

Are we really alone in the universe?

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Image 1: https://www.war.gov/UFO/#NASA-UAP-VM6-Apollo-17-1972

Image 2: https://www.war.gov/UFO/#NASA-UAP-VM6-Apollo-17-1972

"GIMBAL" video: video: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gimbal_The_First_Official_UAP_Footage_from_the_USG_for_Public_Release.webm

"GOFAST" video: Video: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Go_Fast_Official_USG_Footage_of_UAP_for_Public_Release.webm

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Has Far-Right Politics Entered The Mainstream in the UK? With Daniel Trilling May 17, 2026

Show notes

Has far-right thinking entered mainstream politics in the UK?

In 2025, Britain saw its largest-ever far-right rally, following a summer of flag-waving protests. Then, in May 2026, local elections reshaped England’s political landscape: Labour and the Conservatives suffered heavy losses, while Reform UK surged in popularity.

In this episode, author and journalist Daniel Trilling joins academic Sophie Scott-Brown to examine the rise of populist rightwing nationalism and its growing influence on mainstream politics. While Reform UK remains more moderate than parties like Germany’s AfD or Viktor Orbán’s movement in Hungary, Trilling explores its shift to the right on issues such as immigration — and how populist movements tap into feelings of national decline, humiliation, and the desire for strong, authoritarian leadership.

In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss why populist right politics is gaining ground, the decline of the two-party system, the dangers of our current political moment, and what can be done to change course.

Daniel Trilling is a journalist and author, who writes about nationalism, migration and human rights for publications including the London Review of Books, the Guardian and the New York Times. His latest book is If We Tolerate This: How the British Establishment Made the Far Right Respectable.

Sophie Scott Brown is a historian and philosopher specialising in modern intellectual history and political thought.

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Love, Loss and Mourning Paul Auster, with Siri Hustvedt May 16, 2026

Show notes

What does it mean to mourn a shared life?

In this episode, essayist and novelist Siri Hustvedt speaks to book critic Mythili Rao about Ghost Stories. Her most personal work yet, it is a searing and intimate meditation on grief, memory and enduring love, written in the aftermath of the death of her husband, writer, poet and filmmaker Paul Auster.

Weaving together journal entries, letters, emails and fragments of Auster’s final writing, Hustvedt reflects on four decades of love, intellectual companionship and family life in New York.

Together they discuss grief not as a single event but as an altered experience of time, memory and presence. Hustvedt discusses the role of writing in mourning, the value of nurturing an inner life in an age of constant distraction, and the intersection of personal grief and political dread in contemporary America.

Siri Hustvedt is a novelist, essayist and poet. Her books include What I Loved, The Blazing World and Memories of the Future. Her latest book is Ghost Stories.

Mythili Rao is a journalist, book critic and podcaster.

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What Would Happen If We Met Aliens? With Neil deGrasse Tyson May 15, 2026

Show notes

World famous astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson joins Dr Radha Modgil to discuss his new book Take Me to Your Leader, exploring the science of alien life, humanity’s obsession with UFOs, and what first contact might actually look like. From Area 51 to Star Wars, Tyson blends humour, science and big existential questions in a conversation about whether we’re truly alone in the universe.

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London Falling: Patrick Radden Keefe on How Money, Power and Corruption Shape Our City, with Emily Maitlis (Part Two) May 12, 2026

Show notes

Patrick Radden Keefe is an award winning writer known for his ability to tell complex stories in ways that are compelling and revealing.
Author of the bestsellers Empire of Pain—a shocking exposé of the Sackler family and their involvement in the opioid crisis—and Say Nothing, his award-winning account of The Troubles in Northern Ireland and the murder of Jean McConville by the IRA, Keefe has built a global reputation for meticulous reporting, moral clarity, and gripping storytelling.
In May 2026 he joined Emily Maitlis live on the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss the investigation that has led to his new book London Falling. At its centre is a teenager who mysteriously fell to his death from a Thames-side luxury apartment in London, and his grieving family’s determination to get to the truth of what really happened. Keefe also discussed the broader themes of how money laundering, crime and corruption function today in London’s underbelly.

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