Intelligence Squared

In this episode of Intelligence Squared, financier, philanthropist, and author Robert Rosenkranz joins host Bill Browder for a thought-provoking conversation on how ancient wisdom can power modern achievement. Drawing from his latest book, The Stoic Capitalist, Rosenkranz explores how Stoic philosophy—rooted in ideas from 300 BC—can be applied to create a life of accomplishment, fulfillment, and impact in today’s fast-paced world. ---- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared p

Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place. To devote your career to the greatest challenges of our time. To be one of the best, but measured by a new standard of success.’ – Rutger Bregman The brightest minds of our generation may dream of changing the world. But in reality most high achievers will settle for making a lot of money for themselves and their family. World renowned historian and bestselling author Rutger Bregman is on a mission to change that. In April, Bregman came to Intelligence Squared in venues across the UK to convince us that in our age of crisis, we need to stop wasting our talent in jobs that solely provide personal enrichment. Instead if we want to live a successful life we must devote our careers to making the world a radically better place. Bregman discussed why in 2025 social progress is not only stagnating in places but actively going in reverse. He argued that there are lessons from history that can help us overcome this trend and explain that the greate

Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place. To devote your career to the greatest challenges of our time. To be one of the best, but measured by a new standard of success.’ – Rutger Bregman The brightest minds of our generation may dream of changing the world. But in reality most high achievers will settle for making a lot of money for themselves and their family. World renowned historian and bestselling author Rutger Bregman is on a mission to change that. In April, Bregman came to Intelligence Squared in venues across the UK to convince us that in our age of crisis, we need to stop wasting our talent in jobs that solely provide personal enrichment. Instead if we want to live a successful life we must devote our careers to making the world a radically better place. Bregman discussed why in 2025 social progress is not only stagnating in places but actively going in reverse. He argued that there are lessons from history that can help us overcome this trend and explain that the gre

Acclaimed author and journalist Oliver Burkeman has captivated readers with his refreshing insights on how to embrace the finiteness of existence and find meaning in the everyday. Author of the bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and formerly a columnist for the Guardian, Burkeman challenges conventional productivity advice, offering a more realistic perspective on how to live well. In April 2025 Burkeman came to the Intelligence Squared stage, where he was in conversation with Financial Times Columnist Tim Harford, to discuss Meditation for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts – the sequel to Four Thousand Weeks. Together, they explored how letting go of the relentless pursuit of productivity and accepting our imperfections can lead to a more fulfilling life. ----- This is the first instalment of a two-part episode. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only con

Acclaimed author and journalist Oliver Burkeman has captivated readers with his refreshing insights on how to embrace the finiteness of existence and find meaning in the everyday. Author of the bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and formerly a columnist for the Guardian, Burkeman challenges conventional productivity advice, offering a more realistic perspective on how to live well. In April 2025 Burkeman came to the Intelligence Squared stage, where he was in conversation with Financial Times Columnist Tim Harford, to discuss Meditation for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts – the sequel to Four Thousand Weeks. Together, they explored how letting go of the relentless pursuit of productivity and accepting our imperfections can lead to a more fulfilling life. ------ This is the first instalment of a two-part episode. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-o

“This great rewiring of childhood, I argue, is the single largest reason for the tidal wave of adolescent mental illness that began in the early 2010s.” — Jonathan Haidt The mental health of young people has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. In recent months, debates have raged about the impact of smartphones on adolescent wellbeing: Should they be banned in schools? Should children under 14 or 16 even have access to them? These questions have fuelled a growing movement to address the crisis in youth mental health — and no one has done more to lead this conversation than American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt’s groundbreaking book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, has topped bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, sparking urgent conversations among parents, educators and policymakers. Drawing on years of research, Haidt argues that the dramatic rise in adolescent mental distress is linked to two seism

“This great rewiring of childhood, I argue, is the single largest reason for the tidal wave of adolescent mental illness that began in the early 2010s.” — Jonathan Haidt The mental health of young people has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. In recent months, debates have raged about the impact of smartphones on adolescent wellbeing: Should they be banned in schools? Should children under 14 or 16 even have access to them? These questions have fuelled a growing movement to address the crisis in youth mental health — and no one has done more to lead this conversation than American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt’s groundbreaking book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, has topped bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, sparking urgent conversations among parents, educators and policymakers. Drawing on years of research, Haidt argues that the dramatic rise in adolescent mental distress is linked to two seism

What does it mean to have a private life? Our guest today is Tiffany Jenkins, a writer, cultural historian and broadcaster. She is the author of the acclaimed Keeping Their Marbles: How Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There, and a former honorary fellow in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. She wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 series ‘A History of Secrecy’ and ‘Contracts of Silence', about the rise of non-disclosure agreements. Today we’ll be discussing her latest book, Strangers & Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life, which traces the meaning of privacy from ancient times to our digital present, exploring how privacy shaped the modern world and why it remains crucial for our personal and collective freedom. Joining her to discuss the book is Carl Miller, the journalist, co-founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos, and host of crime podcast Kill List. ---------- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our

For this week's Sunday Debate, we're dipping back into the archive to 2014, when we gathered a panel of expert historians to debate whether Britain was right to fight in the First World War, a tragedy that laid the foundations for decades of destructive upheaval and violence across Europe. To debate the issue, we invited leading historians Margaret MacMillan, Max Hastings, John Charmley and Dominic Sandbrook to an event hosted by journalist, columnist and national security expert, Edward Lucas.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Understanding how the diversity of life on earth came to be is one of the greatest puzzles in biology. In his new book, The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle, Professor Max Telford charts a four-billion-year journey through the evolution of our planet, from humans, fish and butterflies to oak trees, mushrooms and bacteria. On today’s episode, Professor Telford sheds light on an epic history of the family tree that records the relationships between every living thing - from Darwin’s early sketches to the vast computer generated diagrams scientists are building today, this is an epic history of the gigantic  Professor Max Telford is an evolutionary biologist and the Jodrell Chair of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College London, where he founded the Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution and the Telford Lab.  Joining Telford to discuss the book is Güneş Taylor, Fellow at the Centre for Reproductive Health and science communicator. If you'd like to become a Member and get access

What do we owe to the dead? What responsibilities do we inherit from the past, and how do they intersect with the crises of the present? In an era of ecological collapse and cultural dislocation, how can we meaningfully honour ancestral memory when the material sites of remembrance - tombs, villages, traditions - are themselves vanishing? In this episode, sociologist and author Alice Mah joins us to discuss her new book, Red Pockets, a deeply personal yet globally resonant exploration of ancestry, ecological anxiety, and cultural memory. Mah is a writer and Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow. Originally from a small town in northern British Columbia, she has a long-standing interest in ecology and place. Drawing on her experiences tracing her family’s lineage from the rice-growing villages of South China, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she was raised, to the post-industrial landscapes of Scotland and England where she now lives, Mah reflects on what it

What if a single ancient language lay at the root of nearly half of the world’s spoken tongues? In today’s episode, acclaimed science writer and journalist Laura Spinney joins us to discuss her new book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global. In Proto, Spinney takes us deep into the mystery of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) - a prehistoric language that no one alive has heard, yet whose echoes can still be found in words spoken from Ireland to India. From the English word star, to Icelandic stjarna, to the Iranic stare - Spinney reveals how echoes of a prehistoric language still ripple across continents and centuries. Along the way, she meets the archaeologists, linguists, and geneticists working to uncover the origins of this linguistic Big Bang - and what it tells us about human history, identity, and movement. Joining Spinney in discussion is global historian Caroline Dodds Pennock, to retrace the paths of nomads, monks, warriors, and kings across the Eurasian steppe, the Caucasus, the Silk Roads, and b

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 the all-consuming passions of the heart. To help you decide who should be crowned queen of English letters we have the lined up the best advocates to make the case for each writer. In this event, chaired by author and critic Erica Wagner, we invited guests including author Kate Mosse, Professor and author John Mullan, and actors Mariah Gale, Samuel West and Dominic West, to discuss each writer's influence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elif Shafak’s award-winning novels are celebrated globally. Her work has been translated into 58 languages, and her latest, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is a testament to the power of storytelling across borders and cultures. This is an epic story of interconnection. Spanning ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary London, Shafak charts the lifespan of a raindrop, as it is consumed, subsumed and transformed across continents and centuries. This sweeping narrative is anchored by the lives of three characters, all of whom live on the banks of the Thames or the Tigris. Their lives are all touched by the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poem written during the late second millennium BC. In April 2025 Shafak was be joined by historian Peter Frankopan on the Intelligence Squared stage. In his acclaimed The Earth Transformed, Frankopan explores how the natural environment has shaped the development and demise of civilisations across time. Here he joined Shafak to shed light on the history of ancient Mesopotamia and the weaving of

What if the biggest threat to liberal democracy isn’t authoritarianism - but our failure to build? On today’s episode we’re joined by journalist Derek Thompson to unpack Abundance, a new vision of progressive politics co-authored by Thompson and Ezra Klein.  In it, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance.  Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, host of the Plain English podcast, and the author of the international bestseller Hit Makers. Carl Miller, writer and fellow at Demos, joins Thompson to discuss the book, and everything from housing policy to the failures of de-growth. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence

On today’s episode: the untold history of Russia’s deep cover spy programme. Shaun Walker is an international correspondent for The Guardian. He reported from Moscow for more than a decade, and his coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine was shortlisted for the Foreign Reporter of the Year category at the British 2023 Press Awards.  In his new book, The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West, Walker explores the untold history of Russia’s deep cover spy programme, following its evolution from the talented “great Illegals” of the 1920s and ’30s up to the 21st century, when agents maintained their fake identities and loyalties even after the fall of the Soviet Union. These deep-cover missions - some remarkable feats of espionage, others high-profile failures - could last for decades. Walker shines new light on the long arc of the Soviet experiment and its messy aftermath - and how that hidden history shaped Russia and the West. Joining him to discuss the book is Carl Miller,

These days, so much of our lives takes place online - but what about our afterlives? A recent study by the Oxford Internet Institute predicts that the number of deceased Facebook users could outnumber the living by 2070. As AI advances, a debate is growing over digital remains and what should be done with the vast amounts of data we leave behind. In this episode, Carl Öhman, author of The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care, explores the ethics, politics, and future of our digital identities. Named one of The Economist's Best Books of 2024, Öhman’s work sheds light on who truly owns our data after death - and whether we should have a say in our digital legacy. Carl Öhman is an assistant professor of political science at Uppsala University, Sweden. His research spans several topics, including the politics and ethics of AI, deepfakes and digital remains. He is joined in conversation by Stephanie Hare, researcher, broadcaster, and author of Technology is No

On today’s episode, Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid sheds light on the history of Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, gave rise to writing, literature, astronomy, and law - shaping human history in ways that still resonate today. Drawing on her new book Between Two Rivers, Al-Rashid brings to life the stories of ordinary people from thousands of years ago: working mothers, enslaved individuals seeking freedom, and even a princess who may have founded the first museum. In conversation with archeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Al-Rashid discusses the earliest written records, from economic tallies to personal letters, and explores how Mesopotamians grappled with timeless human concerns - love, illness, ambition, and the quest for knowledge. Why does Mesopotamia often remain in the shadow of Egypt and Greece? And what can we learn from this ancient civilization today? Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College, where she

We are entering a new era of global instability. The world is facing an era of war, climate change, great power rivalry and unprecedented technological advancement. In April 2025, geopolitical expert and bestselling author Robert Kaplan came to Intelligence Squared to analyse where the world is heading in 2025 and beyond. Drawing from the themes of his new book Waste Land, he argued that history can help guide us through a world that is changing at an unprecedented pace. Kaplan drew comparisons between today’s challenges and the Weimar Republic, the post-World War I democratic German government that arguably paved the way for Nazism in the 1930s. Just as in Weimar, which faced crises inextricably bound up with global systems, the singular dilemmas of the twenty-first century—pandemic disease, recession, mass migration, the destabilizing effects of large-scale democracy and great power conflicts, and the intimate bonds created by technology—mean that every national disaster has the potential to become a globa

We are entering a new era of global instability. The world is facing an era of war, climate change, great power rivalry and unprecedented technological advancement. In April 2025, geopolitical expert and bestselling author Robert Kaplan came to Intelligence Squared to analyse where the world is heading in 2025 and beyond. Drawing from the themes of his new book Waste Land, he argued that history can help guide us through a world that is changing at an unprecedented pace. Kaplan drew comparisons between today’s challenges and the Weimar Republic, the post-World War I democratic German government that arguably paved the way for Nazism in the 1930s. Just as in Weimar, which faced crises inextricably bound up with global systems, the singular dilemmas of the twenty-first century—pandemic disease, recession, mass migration, the destabilizing effects of large-scale democracy and great power conflicts, and the intimate bonds created by technology—mean that every national disaster has the potential to become a globa