Intelligence Squared

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 But what if this mind/body split is not only outdated - but dangerously misleading?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 philosophical reasons for our separation of mind and body in modern medicine. With a focus on the dark history of our treatment of schizophrenia, from 17th century medicine to the emergence of psychiatry in the 19th century, to the eugenics movement of Nazi Germany, he shows how the modern foundations of psychiatry were established, and how new scientific discoveries can help revolutionise how we treat mental illness. The Divided Mind: A New Way of Thinking About Mental Health by Professor Edward Bullmore is available to b

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 a source of inspiration for many musicians, authors and artists. Once an academic and baroque flautist, Dr Hannah French now presents BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show, Saturday Breakfast Show, and live concerts including the BBC Proms. Her first book was Sir Henry Wood Champion of J.S. Bach. Her latest book is The Rolling Year: Listening to the Seasons with Vivaldi. --- 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 intelligencesqu

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 communities and cultures that have been silenced over time. For Dr Khatwa, rocks are both the storytellers of our history – marking geo-political borders and boundaries physically – and the very material which we use to construct our societies, through industry, through war and migration. But Dr Khatwa also highlights the importance of connecting with our local geology and natural landscape. Not only is it essential to preserve the environment around us, but to uncover its secrets and its histories so as to better understan

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 work? Sanctions sceptics argue that they rarely achieve their goals and often inflict suffering on ordinary people while strengthening authoritarian regimes. Far from making unsavoury governments change course, they say, sanctions are little more than virtue signalling, allowing our leaders to appear resolute without doing the harder work of diplomacy or long-term strategic thinking. Proponents of sanctions counter that, when carefully targeted, sanctions can pressure both states and individuals without harming wider

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 Danielle Sands about her deep love of Iceland’s landscape, its traditions and its people, how you can understand the history and culture of a country through its language, and how learning a new language can alter and enrich a writer’s own identity.  Hannah Kent is the author of Burial Rites, Good People and Devotion. Her memoir about her lifelong connection to Iceland, Always Home, Always Homesick, is out now.  If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only co

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 populism and nationalism don’t march fully-formed into government; they creep. In October 2025, she came to Intelligences Squared to discuss how we can spot the early-warning signs of authoritarianism, defend democracy and learn the lessons of resistance from Eastern Europe to South America. Temelkuran also offered an alternative path and described how democracy can survive the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 populism and nationalism don’t march fully-formed into government; they creep. In October 2025, she came to Intelligences Squared to discuss how we can spot the early-warning signs of authoritarianism, defend democracy and learn the lessons of resistance from Eastern Europe to South America. Temelkuran also offered an alternative path and described how democracy can survive the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 ultra-processed food, which is optimised to be addictive. The same goes for our screens, where colourful social media content hooks us and the constant dopamine hits that are designed to be overwhelming make it hard to unplug from the digital world. It is these habits that are fueling modern society’s epidemics of addiction, loneliness and increasing mental health problems. But Nicklas Brendborg argues that by understanding our biology we can learn to manage our habits, resist the hijacking of our natural instincts,

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 Portrait Gallery Flavia Frigeri, Sotheby's Chairman Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide Helena Newman, and award-winning author James Stourton will join Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum Will Gompertz for a special discussion. Together they will explore Klimt's enduring allure – from his luminous portrait of Elisabeth Lederer to the lyricism of the Attersee landscapes – as well as Leonard Lauder's vision and insights into his once-in-a-generation collection. This podcast was recorded at Sotheby’s London in October

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 distinct states not only to survive civil war, but to prosper. He shows how there is a long strain of populism, antagonism towards Washington DC and isolationism in American politics that long pre-dates President Trump. And he makes the case that, despite its divisions, the USA is a unique achievement that will endure long after Trump has left the White House. 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/members

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 noirish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema.  Weaving a fictional account from the creation of Federico Fellini’s flamboyant biopic Casanova and Pasolini’s notoriously shocking, Salò, or 120 Days of Sodom, Laing explores the difficult relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power. 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 y

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 bestseller. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature and was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's last Birthday Honours list in 2022. In this episode, Rushdie sits down with broadcaster and journalist Kavita Puri to discuss his reflections on legacy, mortality, and returning to fiction in his new short story collection The Eleventh Hour. The stories in The Eleventh Hour span the three countries that Rushdie has called home – India, England and America – and

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 powers fundamentally misunderstood what was happening in the country in the months before the revolution. They also examine how these events shaped Iran and the Middle East today, and the political future of a country whose power has been diminished in the region, but whose population is again rallying around the flag in response to external aggression. King of Kings: The Fall of the Shah, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Unmaking of the Modern Middle East is available to by now. Learn more about your ad choices. V

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 some of the most demanding government offices during an extraordinarily turbulent time in recent history. Drawing on the themes of his new book Can We Be Great Again?, he challenged the fatalism that dominates so much of today’s public debate. While candid about Britain’s weaknesses, he argued that on issues ranging from European security and global trade to climate, migration and the future of democracy, the UK still has the potential to lead — if it chooses to act like a country that matters. Hunt was in convers

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 some of the most demanding government offices during an extraordinarily turbulent time in recent history. Drawing on the themes of his new book Can We Be Great Again?, he challenged the fatalism that dominates so much of today’s public debate. While candid about Britain’s weaknesses, he argued that on issues ranging from European security and global trade to climate, migration and the future of democracy, the UK still has the potential to lead — if it chooses to act like a country that matters. Hunt was in convers

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 don’t actually have an AI problem but a data problem, how unstructured data is becoming an untapped goldmine, and why governance, trust, and security are just as important as innovation. From experimentation and scaling, to ROI and common pitfalls, this conversation maps out how leaders can move from dabbling with AI to deploying agents that create real value. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Box. Get the latest AI news here - https://blog.box.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastch

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 use the state to enrich himself and his inner circle? And will he abandon democratic allies and align America with other authoritarian so-called ‘strongman’ states? Many critics say the answer to all of those questions is already, demonstrably ‘yes.’ So how far could he go? We were joined by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum and host Gideon Rachman for the final instalment of our Age of the Strongman event series. --- If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversati

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 will Trump meaningfully crack down on civil liberties? Will he persecute his political opponents? Will he use the state to enrich himself and his inner circle? And will he abandon democratic allies and align America with other authoritarian so-called ‘strongman’ states? Many critics say the answer to all of those questions is already, demonstrably ‘yes.’ So how far could he go? We were joined by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum and host Gideon Rachman for the final instalment of our Age of the Strong

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 Kyiv as Putin’s tanks crossed the border. Most recently she reported from Tehran in the aftermath of Israel’s bombing of Iran. Doucet is renowned for her compassionate, human-centred reporting often in times of war and suffering. In October 2025 she came to the Intelligence Squared stage to share her reflections and insights from four decades on the frontlines. In conversation with fellow broadcaster Lindsey Hilsum, the International Editor for Channel 4 News who has also reported from frontlines of our time, Doucet a

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 Kyiv as Putin’s tanks crossed the border. Most recently she reported from Tehran in the aftermath of Israel’s bombing of Iran. Doucet is renowned for her compassionate, human-centred reporting often in times of war and suffering. In October 2025 she came to the Intelligence Squared stage to share her reflections and insights from four decades on the frontlines. In conversation with fellow broadcaster Lindsey Hilsum, the International Editor for Channel 4 News who has also reported from frontlines of our time, Doucet a