Intelligence Squared

Nearly four centuries after his death, no writer has come close to matching Shakespeare’s understanding of the world – or his gift for dramatic poetry. It’s not just kings and queens that he captured so uniquely in his transcendent verse. Shakespeare analysed the human condition, not just for Elizabethan England, but throughout the world and for eternity. Britain may not have matched the Continent for music or art but when it comes to literature, Shakespeare sees off all international rivals, whether it’s in the spheres of comedy, tragedy or the sonnet. Even today you and I quote Shakespeare without knowing it: if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if you vanish into thin air or have ever been tongue-tied, hoodwinked or slept not one wink, you’re speaking the Bard’s English. Milton, say his fans, works on an altogether different, higher plane. In Paradise Lost – the best poem ever written in English – Milton moved beyond the literary to address political, philosophical and religious questions in a way... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are they out there? Intelligent beings from another world. Will we ever make contact with them? Is it even sensible to make guesses about whether life exists in other galaxies billions of light years from our own? How much do we know about outer space? What are black holes, dark matter and strange attractors? Is our universe just one amongst an infinity of multiverses? Can we dispense with the idea of a creator God? On 16th March 2011 some of the greatest names in space exploration and the mysteries of the cosmos guided us to outer realms and argued about some of the most fascinating questions we’ve ever asked ourselves. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nobel laureate and giant of Western letters, Trinidad-born V. S. Naipaul has excelled in both fiction and non-fiction. His latest book The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief is a travelogue in which Naipaul sets out to discover how far the old Africa's belief in magic has been subverted by the outside world. "I had expected that over the great size of Africa the practices of magic would significantly vary. But they didn’t. The diviners everywhere wanted to ‘throw the bones’ to read the future and the idea of ‘energy’ remained a constant, to be tapped into by the ritual sacrifice of body parts...To witness this, to be given some idea of its power, was to be taken far back to the beginning of things. To reach that beginning was the purpose of my book." In this event from May 2011, V.S. Naipaul talked to Evening Standard editor Geordie Greig. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You don’t have to like Vladimir Putin, or doubt that he’s a nasty piece of work, to recognise that the Russian president’s reaction to the crisis in Ukraine is largely justified. The promise that Russia managed to extract from the West, as it watched its old empire crumble, was that NATO would not expand eastward and that the Baltic states and Poland would not be absorbed into the EU. Not only have Nato and the EU broken that promise, they have even sought to bring Ukraine – for centuries seen as umbilically tied to Russia – into the western fold. The West has tried to influence elections in Ukraine. It has backed the overthrow of a democratically elected president. Putin isn’t being expansionist: he just wants Ukraine to remain a non-aligned buffer zone between Russia and the West. He couldn’t survive the national humiliation of it becoming yet another western outpost. So cut him some slack: we need more diplomacy and fewer threats of reprisals. That’s the voice of the non-interventionists but haven’t... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The books Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics have been worldwide sensations, selling tens of millions of copies. They have come to stand for challenging conventional wisdom using data rather than emotion. Questions they examine are typically: Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? How much do parents really matter? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it’s so ineffective? Now the books’ two authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, have turned what they’ve learned into a readable and practical toolkit for thinking smarter, harder, and different – thinking, that is, like a Freak. On 28th May they came to Intelligence Squared to discuss their new Frequel, Think Like a Freak. By analysing the plans we form and the morals we choose, they showed how their insights can be applied to help us make smarter decisions in our daily lives. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Conventional wisdom tells us that a new star will rise in the East, and all eyes have been looking towards China or India as the 21st century’s new superpower. But remarkable as their recent economic growth may have been, the institutional frailty of both nations raises questions about long-term sustainability. Meanwhile the economies of South America have also been transforming themselves quietly and less flashily, unburdened by the dead weight of caste politics or communism. And it’s not just Brazil that catches the eye: at 9.8 percent Peru's growth rate last year was one of the world’s fastest. So perhaps we should all do an about-turn. In this debate from March 2011, Senior Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck College Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Brazilian Ambassador to the UK HE Roberto Jaguaribe, and Director of the Global Governance Initiative Parag Khanna spoke in favour of the motion. Speaking against the motion were former Economist editor Bill Emmott, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No one doubts the bravery of the thousands of men who flew and died in Bomber Command. The death rate was an appalling 44%. And yet until the opening of a monument in Green Park this year they have received no official recognition, with many historians claiming that the offensive was immoral and unjustified. How can it be right, they argue, for the Allies to have deliberately targeted German cities causing the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians? Even on a strategic level the offensive failed to bring about the collapse of civilian morale that was its intention. Others, however, maintain that the attacks made a decisive contribution to the Allied victory. Vast numbers of German soldiers and planes were diverted from the eastern and western fronts, while Allied bombing attacks virtually destroyed the German air force, clearing the way for the invasion of the continent. In this debate from October 2012, philosopher and author A C Grayling and Professor of History at Exeter University Rochard Overy... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So now we know: our spooks and their spooks are hoovering up and exchanging massive amounts of data on our private lives: not just whom we phone and email but the actual content of our communications; not just which websites we visit but what we choose to buy online. No wonder there’s been such a furore. William Hague has already admitted that the spooks are allowed to pry pretty much where they want and now it’s been revealed that the US National Security Agency allows analysts to search our emails and online chats with no prior authorisation. And the big internet companies – Google, Facebook and so on – have been colluding on how best to keep track of us. Our entire political history has been one of reining in the power of the state and here we are saying to it: come on in and look round. Calm down? You must be joking! That’s the line taken by the blowhards in this debate, screaming about the threat to civil liberties, but are they making a big fuss about nothing? After all we’ve known for years now... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why are there so many Chinese maths and music prodigies? Because Chinese mothers believe schoolwork and music practice come first, that an A-minus is a bad grade, that sleepovers, TV and computer games should never be allowed and that the only activity their children should be permitted to do are ones in which they can eventually win a medal - and that medal must be gold. These methods certainly seem to get results but do they make for the rounded individuals Western parents are striving to bring up? Isn't it better that our children should be happy rather than burnt-out brain boxes? Who's right and who's wrong? In this debate from June 2011, Amy Chua, author of the best-selling ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’, and Theodore Dalrymple, the writer and psychologist, speak for the motion. Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet, and Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent and parenting expert, speak against the motion. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Delve into the historical impact of Lawrence of Arabia and King Faisal I in shaping the modern Middle East, examining their complex roles and the legacy of the Arab revolt. Explore the challenges of Arab unity, the strategic Battle of Akaba, and the influence of female figures like Gertrude Bell. Reflect on the parallels between British and American imperial actions, highlighting themes of hubris and colonial oversight in the region.