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 b...
Feb 04, 2022•55 min
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 Ch...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 2 min
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 ...
Jan 31, 2022•32 min
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 enga...
Jan 30, 2022•52 min
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 illustrati...
Jan 28, 2022•48 min
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 podca...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Dr Christian Busch has spent his career studying chance, serendipity, and how to maximise opportunity. He is director of the C enter 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
Jan 24, 2022•49 min
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 o...
Jan 23, 2022•1 hr 1 min
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...
Jan 21, 2022•40 min
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 A...
Jan 18, 2022•54 min
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 movi...
Jan 17, 2022•34 min
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 buil...
Jan 16, 2022•47 min
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 countr...
Jan 14, 2022•1 hr
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 ...
Jan 11, 2022•48 min
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...
Jan 10, 2022•41 min
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...
Jan 09, 2022•1 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 625
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 a...
Jan 07, 2022•56 min
In their recent book, Poles Apart , behavioural scientist Alex Chesterfield, public affairs specialist Laura Osborne and political advisor Ali Goldsworthy look at what factors drive society apart and what can help bring it back together. Economist and broadcaster Linda Yueh hosts a wide-ranging discussion with the authors exploring not only the cultural forces at play, but also the economic, political and social media triggers that tip people from healthy disagreement into dangerous hostility. L...
Jan 04, 2022•56 min
Damian Bradfield is a tech leader who as co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of WeTransfer steers an essential tool for creatives plus the site's burgeoning culture brand WePresent, too. He joins journalist Rosamund Urwin to discuss the company's journey and also talk through the Ideas Report: WeTransfer's annual survey of the global creative industries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 03, 2022•38 min
Jane Austen created the definitive picture of Georgian England. No writer matches Austen’s sensitive ear for the hypocrisy and irony lurking beneath the genteel conversation. That’s the argument of the Janeites, but to the aficionados of Emily Brontë they are the misguided worshippers of a circumscribed mind. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë dispensed with Austen’s niceties and the upper-middle class drawing rooms of Bath and the home counties. Her backdrop is the savage Yorkshire moors, her subject...
Jan 02, 2022•1 hr 35 min
Gloria Estefan is one of the most successful female singers ever. With more than 120 million records sold worldwide, three Grammy Awards, and a career spanning four decades, she has helped make Latin-flavoured pop music an international success. Estefan is also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Honor and has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. From fleeing Cuba as a young child when it fell under Castro’s control, narrowly escaping death in a bus accident aged 32, to marrying he...
Dec 31, 2021•48 min
Though no laughing matter, the extremes of the Donald Trump presidency made comedians' jobs a little trickier: was the reality more absurd than satire created around it? In 2020 we invited celebrated comedy writer and producer Armando Iannucci, Labour MP Jess Phillips, and satirist and impressionist Jan Ravens, to discuss the issue. The event was chaired by journalist Samira Ahmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Dec 28, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Michael Lewis is one of the most successful non-fiction authors alive. In a series of titles that have sold 9 million copies worldwide, he has lifted the lid on the biggest business stories of our times, enthralling readers with his knack for humanising complex subjects and giving them the page-turning urgency of the best thrillers. Liar’s Poker is the cult classic that defined Wall Street during the 1980s; Moneyball was made into a film with Brad Pitt; Boomerang was a breakneck tour of Europe’s...
Dec 27, 2021•59 min
Nearly four centuries after his death, no writer has matched William Shakespeare’s influence across drama, theatre and poetry but a few have come close. John Milton, say his fans, works on an altogether different, higher plane. In Paradise Lost – one of the most significant poems ever written in English – Milton moved beyond the literary to address political, philosophical and religious questions in a way that still resounds strongly today. To help decide who should be crowned king of English le...
Dec 26, 2021•1 hr 58 min
Samira Ahmed speaks to the chef Yotam Ottolenghi about his life and career, from discovering his love of food in Jerusalem to his professional partnership with Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi, plus how he creates his well-loved cookbooks such as Simple and Flavour . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 24, 2021•40 min
We hear from a panel of historians, authors and broadcasters – Hallie Rubenhold, Natalie Livingstone, Dan Jones and chair Saul David – about how women's stories and female historians have been marginalised throughout history. The conversation, recorded at The Cliveden Literary Festival, also discusses how historians today can help redress the imbalance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 21, 2021•44 min
Satya Nadella is one of the world’s most inspirational business leaders; as much a humanist as a technologist and executive. In September 2017, he came to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss his personal journey from a childhood in India to becoming Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation with journalist and author Kamal Ahmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 20, 2021•57 min
We compare the works of two of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt and Vermeer. Making the case for Rembrandt van Rijn in this debate was historian, author and broadcaster Simon Schama. For Schama, Rembrandt's works are raw humanity personified with formal beauty being the least of the painter's concerns. Novelist Tracy Chevalier, however, champions Johannes Vermeer. She claims that the artist's charm lies in the very fact that he absents himself from his paintings and as a ...
Dec 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University and author of two seminal recent books on the shifting geopolitics of the world: The Silk Roads and its follow-up, The New Silk Roads . He speaks to fellow historian and writer Simon Sebag Montefiore at the Cliveden Literary Festival about how we may be currently witnessing the end of a historical era amid the emergence of a brand new one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Dec 17, 2021•49 min
Samira Ahmed speaks to the author Fatima Bhutto about the power of writing fiction, growing up in one of Pakistan’s most famous political dynasties and why she blames her aunt, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, for the death of her father. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 14, 2021•48 min
