Intelligence Squared

By Intelligence SquaredSociety & Culture News Arts News Commentary

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Intelligence Squared episodes

October 22, 2021 The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele
The history of Africans in Europe may seem recent – a result of migration in the 20th and 21st centuries – but in her new book, African Europeans, historian Olivette Otele tells a very different story – a story of African presence in Europe that stretches back centuries.
Otele writes of African Europeans through the lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary. She has uncovered a forgotten past, one that features the Libya-born Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, a Medici duke believed to have been born to a free African woman and enslaved Africans living in Europe during the Renaissance. By exploring a history that has long been overlooked, she sheds light on questions very much alive today: What can movements like Black Lives Matter learn from the long history of Black activism in the UK and Europe? Why are Black Britons such as the Windrush generation often treated as if they aren’t full British citizens? And how can remembering the silenced narratives of our past help us understand the present and lead to a better future?
On November 23 2020, Otele will came to Intelligence Squared to reveal this untold story of European and African history. She was in conversation with author and BBC Radio 4 presenter Kavita Puri.
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54 min
October 19, 2021 Empire of Pain: Sacklers, Opioids and the Sickening of America
How did one family become associated with an epidemic of drug addiction that has caused the death of almost half a million people?
In this episode, award-winning writer and author of Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe speaks to Hannah Kuchler, the FT’s global pharmaceutical correspondent about how he uncovered fresh material on the Sacklers and discovered a modern parable of greed, corruption and cynical philanthropy.
To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/empire-of-pain-the-secret-history-of-the-sackler-dynasty-patrick-keefe-subscribers/

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49 min
October 18, 2021 Business Weekly: No Bullsh*t Leadership with Jimmy Wales
Chris Hirst, Global CEO of advertising group Havas Creative, cuts through the bullshit and gets to the heart of modern leadership in this straight-talking podcast brought to you by Intelligence Squared.
In this episode Chris Hirst speaks to the internet pioneer and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales who is perhaps the most famous silicon-valley entrepreneur to not become a billionaire. Wikipedia has changed how knowledge is accessed across the world, with 1.5 billion devices accessing the site every month. Jimmy Wales is also founder of the Wikimedia Foundation and co-founder of Wikia, a privately owned free web hosting service he set up in 2004. In 2019 he founded WT.Social, a microblogging site pitched as a 'non-toxic social network...where advertisers don't call the shots'. The service contains no advertisements and runs off donations.
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36 min
October 17, 2021 The Sunday Debate: China, friend or foe?
Is China an enemy that needs to be reined in, or a potential partner with whom the West should engage? Hear the arguments and decide for yourself.
Speakers: Martin Wolf, Keyu Jin, Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
Chair: Carrie Gracie

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1 hr 25 min
October 15, 2021 Covid by Numbers with David Spiegelhalter
With data on the Covid-19 pandemic changing shape with every new outbreak and new mutation, it's a complex task to make sense of where the story of the virus will head next. David Spiegelhalter is chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University and an expert on crunching figures in order to understand successes and failures. His new book Covid by Numbers, co-written with Anthony Masters, seeks to shine a spotlight on the UK's handling of the pandemic. In this episode he speaks with the virologist and host of The Naked Scientist podcast Dr Chris Smith.

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46 min
October 12, 2021 Can We Fix Capitalism? Yanis Varoufakis vs Gillian Tett
Should capitalism be reformed or replaced? Former Greek Finance Minister and economist Yanis Varoufakis and Gillian Tett US editor at large at the Financial Times discuss and debate their visions for a post-COVID economy live in London. The moderator is Anne McElvoy senior editor at The Economist.
For the Intelligence Squared discount on Gillian Tett's book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/anthro-vision-how-anthropology-can-explain-business-and-life-gillian-tett/
For the Intelligence Squared discount on Yanis Varoufakis's book click here:
https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/another-now-dispatches-from-an-alternative-present-yanis-varoufakis/

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1 hr 3 min
October 11, 2021 Business Weekly: No Bullsh*t Leadership with Kwame Kwei-Armah
Chris Hirst, Global CEO of advertising group Havas Creative, cuts through the bullshit and gets to the heart of modern leadership in this straight-talking podcast brought to you by Intelligence Squared.
In this episode Chris speaks to Kwame Kwei-Armah, the Artistic Director of the Young Vic theatre in London. He is also an actor, playwright, singer and broadcaster. From 2011 to 2018 he was the Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage, and he was Artistic Director for the Festival of Black arts and Culture, Senegal, in 2010. His series of eight short films, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, was shown on BBC4 in 2019. He is a patron of Ballet Black and a visiting fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. If you enjoyed this podcast please let us know what you think by rating and reviewing No Bullsh*t Leadership on Apple Podcasts.

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49 min
October 10, 2021 The Sunday Debate: The Battle Over Free Speech: Are Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and No-Platforming Harming Young Minds?
For this week's episode of The Sunday Debate, we revisit our event from 2018.
Many would argue that these are the fundamental goals of a good education. So why has Cambridge University taken to warning its students that the sexual violence in Titus Andronicus might be traumatic for them? Why are other universities in America and increasingly in Britain introducing measures to protect students from speech and texts they might find harmful? Safe spaces, trigger warnings and no-platforming are now campus buzzwords – and they’re all designed to limit free speech and the exchange of ideas. As celebrated social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues in his book The Coddling of the American Mind, university students are increasingly retreating from ideas they fear may damage their mental health, and presenting themselves as fragile and in need of protection from any viewpoint that might make them feel unsafe.The culture of safety, as Haidt calls it, may be well intentioned, but it is hampering the development of young people and leaving them unprepared for adult life, with devastating consequences for them, for the companies that will soon hire them, and for society at large.
That, Haidt’s critics argue, is an infuriating misinterpretation of initiatives designed to help students. Far from wanting to shut down free speech and debate, what really concerns the advocates of these new measures is the equal right to speech in a public forum where the voices of the historically marginalised are given the same weight as those of more privileged groups. Warnings to students that what they’re about to read or hear might be disturbing are not an attempt to censor classic literature, but a call for consideration and sensitivity. Safe spaces aren’t cotton-wool wrapped echo chambers, but places where minority groups and people who have suffered trauma can share their experiences without fear of hostility.
Joining Haidt on stage were the former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who believes that educating young people through debate and argument helps foster robustness, author and activist Eleanor Penny, and sociologist Kehinde Andrews, one of the UK’s leading thinkers on race and the history of racism. The event was chaired by Emily Maitlis.

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1 hr 3 min
October 08, 2021 The Pandora Paper trail with Jeffrey Sachs
The recent publication of The Pandora Papers, a trove of 12 million financial documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has once again shone a spotlight on secret offshore accounts and tax loopholes. The papers contain the financial dealings and global influence of billionaires, world leaders and politicians, plus many more. They also highlight how ineffective governments can be in preventing manipulation of tax rules for the gains of the super rich. In order to understand how this imbalance occurs and how it fits into the global financial picture, journalist Razia Iqbal spoke with Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world's most foremost economists, to pick through the paper trail.

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57 min
October 05, 2021 Connectivity and conflict, with Mark Leonard
A more interconnected world was supposed to bring us closer together, but Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, says the opposite has occurred. He joins Carl Miller to discuss his new book The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict, which argues that technology and a lack of joined up thinking is affecting communication on every level. From standoffs between nation states to individuals hurling insults on social media, Mark identifies how connectivity is being mismanaged and exploited during an era in which defining narratives are ever more elusive to pin down.
To find out more about the book click here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-age-of-unpeace/mark-leonard/9780552178273

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33 min