Over the course of a decade in politics Rory Stewart saw how power really works and what forces drive our communities apart. He was a backbench MP, held several ministerial positions, and stood for prime minister – before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise. Now, well away from the political arena, he regularly shares his insights into current affairs and global politics as co-host of the UK’s leading political podcast, The Rest Is Politics. In October he ...
Dec 12, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 3341
Over the course of a decade in politics Rory Stewart saw how power really works and what forces drive our communities apart. He was a backbench MP, held several ministerial positions, and stood for prime minister – before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise. Now, well away from the political arena, he regularly shares his insights into current affairs and global politics as co-host of the UK’s leading political podcast, The Rest Is Politics. In October he ...
Dec 10, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 3340
Who does our data belong to? In this episode, Carl Miller speaks to NYT magazine journalist and author Michael Steinberger about Alex Karp, Palantir and the rise of the surveillance state. Founded in 2003, Palantir is widely regarded as the most interesting company in Silicon Valley – as well as its most controversial. It aided the US government in the war on terrorism and is now used by the CIA, the NHS, the US military and corporate giants like Airbus and BP. But its billionaire CEO, Alex Karp...
Dec 08, 2025•51 min•Season 1Ep. 3339
Sanna Marin is a trailblazer in modern politics. When she became Prime Minister of Finland in 2019, she made history: at 34 she was the youngest ever leader of her country and the youngest leader in the world at the time. As Prime Minister she confronted significant challenges. She led Finland through the COVID-19 pandemic, helped the country navigate neighbouring Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and led Finland’s rapid joining of NATO – the swiftest entry for any country in the alliance...
Dec 07, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 3338
Sanna Marin is a trailblazer in modern politics. When she became Prime Minister of Finland in 2019, she made history: at 34 she was the youngest ever leader of her country and the youngest leader in the world at the time. As Prime Minister she confronted significant challenges. She led Finland through the COVID-19 pandemic, helped the country navigate neighbouring Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and led Finland’s rapid joining of NATO – the swiftest entry for any country in the alliance...
Dec 05, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 3337
In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. In November 2025, Andrew Ross Sorkin, acclaimed New York Times columnist and author, came to Intelligence Squared to reveal the lessons of the 1929 financial crash and how that era of political instability and market turmoil eerily mirrors today. Drawing from his new book 1929, he set out a blueprint for understanding ...
Dec 03, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 3336
In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. In November 2025, Andrew Ross Sorkin, acclaimed New York Times columnist and author, came to Intelligence Squared to reveal the lessons of the 1929 financial crash and how that era of political instability and market turmoil eerily mirrors today. Drawing from his new book 1929, he set out a blueprint for understanding ...
Dec 01, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 3335
This is an episode of The Specialist, your weekly dose of wonder. In The Specialist, explore the significance and journey of an extraordinary work through the eyes of those that know it best. On today’s episode, an auction built overnight - Virgil Abloh’s reimagining of the iconic Nike Air Force 1 for Louis Vuitton. The auction became a global phenomenon, with two hundred pairs sold exclusively through Sotheby’s, attracting bidders from more than 50 countries. Brahm Wachter, Sotheby's Head of Mo...
Nov 29, 2025•14 min•Season 1Ep. 3333
In this episode academic and author Martin Moore speaks to host Carl Miller about the global battle to control the news. Drawing from his new book 'Dictating Reality' co-authored with Thomas Colley, they discuss how from the United States to China and from Brazil to India, an authoritarian approach to news is spreading across the world. Moore argues that increasingly, the media is no longer a check on power or a source of objective information but a means by which governments and leaders can pro...
Nov 28, 2025•37 min•Season 1Ep. 3332
What does the history of Test cricket show us about identity? In this episode, Joey D’Urso speaks to award-winning author Tim Wigmore about how the players and the stories that have shaped Test cricket’s evolution since 1877. With Test cricket on the cusp of its 150th anniversary, Tim Wigmore looks back at the history of the game and its legacy. Wigmore examines the pathways into elite cricket and the inequalities – economic, racial and infrastructural – that continue to influence who reach the ...
Nov 26, 2025•43 min•Season 1Ep. 3331
For centuries, mental and physical health have been divided - disorders of the mind and body have been treated as if they were poles apart. This deep-rooted division has shaped medicine, psychiatry, and society. But what if this mind/body split is not only outdated - but dangerously misleading? Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Professor Edward Bullmore is Regius Professor of Psychiatry at Kings College London. For this episode, he sat down with Dr Güneş Taylor to explore the historical and philos...
Nov 24, 2025•48 min•Season 1Ep. 3330
Can music help us notice nature more deeply? In this episode, Dr Leah Broad speaks to broadcaster and author Dr Hannah French about the enduring influence and legacy of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This year is the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It’s therefore the perfect occasion for Dr Hannah French to explore the seasons as Vivaldi would have experienced them. Whether it's the song of local birds or an impending storm, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons intimate relationship with nature remains ...
Nov 23, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 3329
How does the Earth remember its own history? In this episode, Professor Caroline Dodds Pennock speaks to award-winning Earth Scientist Dr Anjana Khatwa about the deep stories hidden within our landscapes. Dr Khatwa discusses how rocks and minerals are more than just passive objects underneath our feet. Rather, they are archives of time, memory, climate, catastrophe and life itself. Through their material fortitude, rocks are tableaus of indigenous voices, ancient civilisations and other communit...
Nov 21, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 3328
In partnership with GlobalSanctions.com , the world’s leading online resource for up to the minute information on sanctions and export controls worldwide. Sanctions have become one of the most widely used tools in modern foreign policy, imposed not only on states but also on individual leaders, oligarchs and corporations. From trade embargoes to asset freezes and travel bans, sanctions are deployed in response to everything from territorial aggression to human rights abuses. But do they actually...
Nov 19, 2025•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 3327
When Australian writer Hannah Kent first travelled to Iceland at the age of 17, she had never seen snow before, and didn’t speak a word of Icelandic. Living in a remote part of Iceland during the dark winter, she fell in love with the country, its landscape and its people. This experience inspired her bestselling novel, Burial Rites . She has now returned to the country that formed her identity as a writer, with a new memoir, Always Home, Always Homesick . For this episode, she spoke to host Dan...
Nov 17, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 3326
Temelkuran is a brilliant writer, finding humour, hope and humanity in the darkest corners of our current malaise.’ – BRIAN ENO Ece Temelkuran is the award winning Turkish writer and author who was forced into exile for her critical views of President Erdoğan. She has long signalled the alarm that not only her home country of Türkiye but the whole democratic world is steadily sleepwalking into authoritarianism. Her 2019 book How To Lose A Country was an impassioned warning to the world that popu...
Nov 16, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 3325
Temelkuran is a brilliant writer, finding humour, hope and humanity in the darkest corners of our current malaise.’ – BRIAN ENO Ece Temelkuran is the award winning Turkish writer and author who was forced into exile for her critical views of President Erdoğan. She has long signalled the alarm that not only her home country of Türkiye but the whole democratic world is steadily sleepwalking into authoritarianism. Her 2019 book How To Lose A Country was an impassioned warning to the world that popu...
Nov 14, 2025•37 min•Season 1Ep. 3324
Are we living in a world designed to hijack our brains? In this episode, Dr Emma Yhnell speaks to international best-selling author Nicklas Brendborg about how supernormal stimuli have become the norm in modern society. Whether it's food or our screens, Nicklas Brendborg argues that we’re living in an environment that is engineered to keep us hooked. Over centuries, through our agricultural practices we perfected food that appeals to our most basic taste receptors. But we are now in the age of u...
Nov 12, 2025•47 min•Season 1Ep. 3323
On today’s episode, an episode from our friends at Sotheby's exploring the remarkable collection of Leonard A. Lauder, one of the greatest collectors and benefactors of the arts in America. At its centre is Gustav Klimt's celebrated Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, alongside works by Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, Vincent Van Gogh and other luminaries of modern art. Ahead of Sotheby’s landmark sale of this extraordinary collection this October, Curatorial and Collections Director at the National Por...
Nov 10, 2025•44 min•Season 1Ep. 3322
The United States of America is younger than the British Museum and Guinness - in 2026 it celebrates its 250th birthday. How did this vast melting pot of people and ideas come to dominate global politics and culture? Historian and journalist Simon Jenkins believes America’s success stems from its careful balancing of the freedoms and interests of the states and the federal government. For this episode he talks to Mythili Rao about the enduring tensions and balances that have enabled these fifty ...
Nov 09, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 3321
Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They are the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing’s first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. In today’s episode, Laing sits down with host Mythili Rao to discuss their latest novel, The Silver Book. The Silver Book is at once a queer love story and a noiris...
Nov 07, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 3320
Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most acclaimed, award-winning contemporary authors. Translated into over forty languages, his sixteen works of fiction include Midnight’s Children – for which he won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Booker of Bookers on the 25th anniversary of the prize and Best of the Booker on the 40th anniversary – Shame, The Satanic Verses, Quichotte and Victory City. His latest non-fiction book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder was a number one Sunday Times best...
Nov 05, 2025•43 min•Season 1Ep. 3319
Scott Anderson is a veteran foreign reporter and war correspondent, and a contributing writer for The New York Times. Over his career he has reported from Bosnia, Libya, Palestine and across the Middle East. In this episode, he spoke to host Hannah Lucinda Smith about his new book, King of Kings , a gripping account of the fall of the Shah of Iran, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic. Together, they explore the flaws that led to the Shah’s downfall, and why Western p...
Nov 03, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 3318
We’ve heard enough from the pessimists. Yes, these are hard times, but what investors, business owners and all of us need right now is not more despair about the economy, but a clear roadmap towards growth and prosperity. In October 2025, Jeremy Hunt came to the Intelligence Squared stage to share his vision of how we can achieve economic renewal. Hunt’s optimism is grounded in the authority of experience. As a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Health Secretary, he held s...
Nov 02, 2025•37 min•Season 1Ep. 3317
We’ve heard enough from the pessimists. Yes, these are hard times, but what investors, business owners and all of us need right now is not more despair about the economy, but a clear roadmap towards growth and prosperity. In October 2025, Jeremy Hunt came to the Intelligence Squared stage to share his vision of how we can achieve economic renewal. Hunt’s optimism is grounded in the authority of experience. As a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Health Secretary, he held s...
Oct 31, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 3316
We’re only at the very beginning of the AI transformation. The next big leap isn’t just smarter chatbots, it’s AI agents: tools that don’t just answer questions but loop, reason, and complete whole tasks within your workflows. In this episode, journalist and author Kamal Ahmed sits down with Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box, to explain how a strong content and AI strategy enables organisations to rethink how work gets done across their businesses using AI agents. Learn why most companies d...
Oct 29, 2025•49 min•Season 1Ep. 3315
The morning after Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, The New York Times front page declared: ‘America Hires a Strongman’. But is Trump really a ‘strongman’ and is it fair to put him in the same category of leaders as Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping? The Trump administration is already viewed by many commentators as more authoritarian than the first. But will Trump meaningfully crack down on civil liberties? Will he persecute his political opponents? Will he...
Oct 27, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 3314
This event is part of our Age of the Strongman series. Click here to see the other events in the series . The morning after Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, The New York Times front page declared: ‘America Hires a Strongman’. But is Trump really a ‘strongman’ and is it fair to put him in the same category of leaders as Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping? The Trump administration is already viewed by many commentators as more authoritarian than the first. But...
Oct 25, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 3313
As the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet has witnessed and reported on some of the most consequential events of our time. She has reported from Afghanistan since 1988, during the Soviet troop withdrawal, played a leading role in the BBC’s coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings reporting from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, and has covered major wars as well as efforts to make peace in the Middle East since 1994. In 2022 she covered the Russian invasion of Ukraine live from Ky...
Oct 23, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 3310
As the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet has witnessed and reported on some of the most consequential events of our time. She has reported from Afghanistan since 1988, during the Soviet troop withdrawal, played a leading role in the BBC’s coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings reporting from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, and has covered major wars as well as efforts to make peace in the Middle East since 1994. In 2022 she covered the Russian invasion of Ukraine live from Ky...
Oct 21, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 3311
