Messalina was the third wife of the Emperor Claudius and one of the most notorious women of the Roman world. Historians Tacitus and Suetonius wrote that the Empress Messalina was 'a ruthless and sexually insatiable schemer.' The stories they told about her included nightly visits to a brothel and...

Since the original publication of Nudge more than a decade ago, the word that served as the title of the ground-breaking book has entered the vocabulary of businesspeople, policy makers, engaged citizens and consumers everywhere. Nudge has sold more than two million copies worldwide and has been ...

There are six crucial substances in human history: sand, iron, salt, oil, copper and lithium. They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day. They build our homes and offices, power our computers and phones, and create life-saving medicines. But most of us take them completely for granted.

I...

What are the true origins of gendered oppression? Why does gender inequality persist despite efforts for change? What part do we all play in keeping patriarchal structures alive?

On June 20 award-winning science journalist Angela Saini comes to Intelligence Squared to address these questions ...

If you’re a woman living in a deprived area of England, you are likely to die seven years younger than if you were living in an affluent area. If you attend a private school, by the time you are 40 you can expect to earn 35% more than a former state school pupil. And if you are homeless as an adu...

Britain's empire once made it the most powerful nation on earth. But according to Sathnam Sanghera we are either silent or awkward at best when speaking about it. Sanghera himself was not taught about the empire in school and it was only in his forties that he began to research and understand the...

When we throw things ‘away’, what does that actually mean? Where does it go, and who deals with it when it gets there? Award-winning journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis has spent the last number of years investigating the global waste industry. On June 27 he comes to Intelligence Squared to tell us...

Bruce Daisley is one the world’s most respected thought leaders on workplace culture and the future of work. He was Vice-President of Twitter in Europe for 12 years and has four times been voted the ‘fantasy hire’ that most business leaders would like to make.

In August 2022 he came to Intellige...

‘Putin’s calculation is simple: a Ukraine with a permanent war in its eastern region will never be fully welcomed by Europe or the rest of the world’ ― Andrey Kurkov, Grey Bees

Andrey Kurkov is Ukraine’s most famous living novelist. Hailed as a latter-day Bulgakov and a Ukrainian Murakami, he im...

‘Relative to everyone who could come after us, we are a tiny minority. Yet we hold the entire future in our hands.’ – Will MacAskill

Will MacAskill is becoming one of the world’s most important intellectuals. Acclaimed by the likes of Stephen Fry and Elon Musk, he is currently featured on the co...

War and Politics in the 21st Century with Sir Lawrence Freedman
Sir Lawrence Freedman is the UK’s leading expert on military strategy and the go-to voice since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for his clear-sighted analysis of the conflict.

On October 6 he comes to Intelligence Squared to discuss the...

In April 1944 nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba and fellow inmate Fred Wetzler became the first Jews ever to break out of Auschwitz. Under electrified fences and past armed watchtowers, evading thousands of SS men and slavering dogs, they trekked across marshlands, mountains and rivers to freedom. Vr...

Robin Dunbar has been hailed as one of the most insightful and creative evolutionary thinkers of our time, famed for his work on human networks and communities (he came up with the Dunbar number, the idea that humans can have no more than 150 meaningful relationships). Now he turns his attention ...

What was Rome like during its zenith? Find out on July 11 when acclaimed historian and co-host of The Rest Is History podcast Tom Holland comes to Intelligence Squared to paint a vivid picture of Rome during the Pax Romana, when Rome was the world’s great superpower. Drawing on his new book Pax: ...

Can we love the art of monstrous men? Can we truly separate the art from the artist? Should we boycott their work or should we still appreciate their genius despite their actions?

To answer these questions author and critic Claire Dederer came to Intelligence Squared in July 24. In conversation...

Philosopher Susan Neiman and cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams came to Intelligence Squared for a challenging conversation on the themes of Neiman’s new book Left is Not Woke. Neiman set out what she sees as the dangerous consequences of conflating ‘wokeism’ with the Left, arguing that t...

In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion. In the twentieth century, they were hated because of their race. Today Jews are hated for something else: the nation state of Israel. That's the argument being made by journalist and editor of the Jewish Chronicle Jake Wallis Simons, who com...

John Gray is one of the UK’s most important and influential political thinkers. Sceptical of ideas about progress and the perfectibility of human nature, he is an arch critic of liberalism, believing that history moves in cycles rather than inexorably towards a better future.

On September 14 he...

Bestselling author and activist Naomi Klein goes down the rabbit hole in pursuit of her doppelganger – another well known writer with a name similar to hers but whose views couldn’t be more different from her own. She finds herself returning again and again to a place she calls Mirror World, wher...

Michael Lewis is the renowned author of bestselling masterpieces including Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys and Liar’s Poker. This autumn he is set to release his most anticipated book to date which is likely to be one of 2023’s biggest sellers – Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Ty...