Intelligence Squared

Intelligence Squared

Intelligence Squared is the home of lively debate and deep-dive discussion. Follow Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy four regular episodes per week taking you to the heart of the issues that matter in the company of the world’s great minds. 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 podcasts@intelligencesquared.com 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.

Episodes

Why Did Elite Cambridge Graduates Become Soviet Spies? Revisiting the Cambridge Five, with Antonia Senior

April 16, 2026 • 40 mins
The Cambridge Five - Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, John Cairncross and Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt - made up one of the most notorious spy rings of the 20th century. Besotted with communist ideology and radicalised while at Cambridge University in the 1930s, their clandestine supply of British and US intelligence material gave Stalin an inside track on US and British decision-making until May 1951. So h...
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How Will the Climate Crisis Reshape Global Politics? With Former Diplomat and Author, Arthur Snell

April 14, 2026 • 49 mins
Our changing climate is accelerating conflict and migration, with the potential to drive political instability from the Sahel to Saudi Arabia to Siberia. From the water-stressed mountains of the Arabian Peninsula to the wildfires raging through America’s most populated regions, the climate crisis is already affecting the lives of millions.  In a new book, Elemental, former diplomat Arthur Snell explores how global powers must adap...
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Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan

April 12, 2026 • 48 mins
More people are being labelled with medical conditions than ever before. Diagnoses of autism, ADHD, allergies, and long COVID have skyrocketed - but are we actually getting less healthy?  In this episode, neurologist Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan speaks to Dr Güneş Taylor about an impending crisis of overdiagnosis. Drawing on histories of real people, as well as decades of clinical practice and the latest medical research, O’Sullivan argu...
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How Has Translation Transformed Shakespeare? With Daniel Hahn

April 11, 2026 • 54 mins
What does it mean to translate some of the most recognisable and revered works in the English language? When the wordplay, poetry, and syntax of Shakespeare are all changed, is it still truly Shakespeare?  In this episode, host Mythili Rao speaks with translator Daniel Hahn about his new book If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation. From Hamlet in Italian to Romeo and Juliet in Thai, Hahn explores how Shak...
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Should You Be Talking To AI? with Jamie Bartlett

April 9, 2026 • 44 mins
Hundreds of millions of people now talk to AI, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini every day. They organise their finances and holidays, ask advice, seek therapy and find love – via machines. Almost overnight, chatbots are transforming society, politics and business. This is one of the biggest and fastest technological changes in history. In this episode journalist and author, Jamie Bartlett, speaks to Intelligence Squared’s Head of...
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Who Are Renoir’s Mystery Girls? With Catherine Ostler

April 7, 2026 • 42 mins
Could one of Renoir’s most iconic paintings conceal one of the most astonishing true stories of scandal and tragedy in Golden Age Paris? In 1881, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted two young sisters from a Jewish banking dynasty at their home in Paris’s grand 8th arrondissement. Pink and Blue, a portrait of Elisabeth and Alice Cahen d’Anvers, is one of Renoir’s most celebrated works. But behind the evoked glamour of the Belle Époque, a...
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Stalin vs Trotsky: The Assassination That Changed History, with Josh Ireland

April 5, 2026 • 38 mins
On August 20, 1940, in a quiet study in Mexico, one of the 20th century’s most consequential political exiles was assassinated with an ice pick. The killing of Leon Trotsky marked the culmination of a relentless campaign orchestrated by Joseph Stalin, stretching across continents and years of pursuit. But how did the plot unfold — and who was the man who carried it out? In this episode, historian and author Tim Bouverie speaks wi...
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Can Discomfort Be the Key to a Better Life? With Ken Rideout

April 4, 2026 • 36 mins
Dr Radha Modgil is joined by endurance athlete, investor and author Ken Rideout for an inspiring Intelligence Squared conversation on what it really takes to transform your life. Drawing on the ideas in his book Everything You Want Is On The Other Side of Hard, Rideout argues that growth, confidence and fulfilment are only found by deliberately choosing discomfort over ease. Together, they explore why so many of us avoid difficult...
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How and Why did Sexual Reproduction Evolve on our Planet? With Dr Lixing Sun

April 2, 2026 • 39 mins
Before sex evolved on our planet, two billion years ago, all reproduction happened asexually. So why and how did sexual reproduction evolve? Dr Lixing Sun is Distinguished Research Professor in behavior and evolution at Central Washington University. In a new book, On the Origin of Sex, he explores the fascinating, varied and complex ways reproduction happens across the natural world: from whiptail lizards, capable of immaculate c...
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Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part Two)

March 31, 2026 • 33 mins
According to Great British Bake Off judge and national treasure Prue Leith the secret to a happy life lies in embracing everyday with joy while accepting our inevitable end. Prue has had an exhilarating career. She has been a Michelin-starred restaurateur, author, broadcaster, and beloved Bake Off judge. Yet her passion for life has also been shaped by the loss of her brother and first husband. These experiences inspired her to be...
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Hungry for Life! An Evening with Prue Leith (Part One)

March 30, 2026 • 34 mins
According to Great British Bake Off judge and national treasure Prue Leith the secret to a happy life lies in embracing everyday with joy while accepting our inevitable end. Prue has had an exhilarating career. She has been a Michelin-starred restaurateur, author, broadcaster, and beloved Bake Off judge. Yet her passion for life has also been shaped by the loss of her brother and first husband. These experiences inspired her to be...
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How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman

March 29, 2026 • 47 mins
How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? New research by historian Brooke Newman argues that, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, until well into the 19th century, the Crown and its navy helped expand, finance and protect the trade in enslaved African people. In this episode, Newman joins historian and broadcaster Helen Carr to examine how the monarchy’s links to slavery complicate Britain’s nat...
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The Specialist | The Coin Worth More Than Its Weight in Gold, with Selby Kiffer and David Tripp

March 27, 2026 • 17 mins
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, the extraordinary saga of the 1933 Double Eagle, America’s last gold coin; stolen, smuggled, and seized. Selby Kiffer is Sotheby's Senior International Specialist of Books and Manuscripts. Over the last half century, he ...
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Why Are Populists Winning? With Liam Byrne and Will Hutton

March 26, 2026 • 54 mins
Populism has been winning big in recent years. It is the wave that has buoyed Donald Trump’s second term in office, Marine Le Pen’s popularity in France, and Reform UK’s recent leaps and bounds in British polling. Across the West, authoritarian populists now govern one-quarter of the world's democracies. But what explains the surge of populism across the democratic world - and can it be reversed? In this episode, economist and co...
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How To Overcome Trauma, With Psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead (Part Two)

March 24, 2026 • 33 mins
Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain’s leading forensic psychiatrists. She is the author of The Sunday Times bestseller, The Devil You Know, which inspired her series of BBC Reith Lectures in 2024.  In February 2026, she came to the Kiln Theatre for a compelling conversation about trauma, resilience and the transformative power of psychiatry. Drawing on case stories and the themes of her new book, Unspeakable, she asked questions tha...
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How To Overcome Trauma, With Psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead (Part One)

March 22, 2026 • 39 mins
Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain’s leading forensic psychiatrists. She is the author of The Sunday Times bestseller, The Devil You Know, which inspired her series of BBC Reith Lectures in 2024.  In February 2026, she came to the Kiln Theatre for a compelling conversation about trauma, resilience and the transformative power of psychiatry. Drawing on case stories and the themes of her new book, Unspeakable, she asked questions tha...
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How Has Living With Animals Shaped Our Brains? With Michael Bond

March 21, 2026 • 43 mins
Humans are animals. 40,000 years ago our ancestors considered themselves inseparable from the landscape and the wild animals that lived alongside them.  But over generations, we developed an idea that still shapes modern life: the belief that we are separate from, and superior to, other species.  In this episode, together with Dr Güneş Taylor, science writer Michael Bond draws on insights from neuroscience, anthropology and cultur...
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The Specialist | From Canvas to Canon: Joan Mitchell’s King of Spades, with Courtney Kremers

March 20, 2026 • 15 mins
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, the female pioneer of abstract expressionism whose lyrical compositions came to reset market expectations. Courtney Kremers examines King of Spades, Joan Mitchell’s formative masterpiece, which signalled the convergence of...
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Why Are Ancient Myths Resurfacing in Modern Britain? With Zakia Sewell

March 19, 2026 • 42 mins
Are Pagan Traditions Shaping a New British Identity? In this episode, Academic, broadcaster and critic Shahidha Bari speaks to journalist, DJ and author Zakia Sewell about her book Finding Albion: Myth, Folklore and the Quest for a Hidden Britain which has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2026. In this episode, Sewell recounts her discovery of an alternative Britain, which lies beyond divisive national myths ...
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Sex, Gender and Christianity: A 3,000 Year History, with Diarmaid MacCulloch and Mary Beard (Part Two)

March 17, 2026 • 37 mins
In the twenty-first century, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary revolutions in attitudes to sex and gender in human history, bringing liberation for some and fury and fear for others. Understanding the history of Christianity and its influence on our cultural identity is essential to understanding debates around the role of women in society, same-sex relationships and the p...
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