Over the last twenty years, award-winning Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, has watched his nation disappear time and time again. Sectarian division, ethnic division, and military intervention have torn his native Baghdad apart - leaving him feeling like a stranger in his own city. In the third episode of this series Iraq: Legacy of War, brought to you by Intelligence Squared, host Renad Mansour sits down with Ghaith Abdul-Ahad to discuss how Iraqi citizens lost their country and the disappearing sense of ‘Watan’ - a word that means the nation, the state and the homeland all in one. A Stra ..read more

What happened in Iraq once the Americans and the British arrived? Why was the transfer of power a far from smooth operation? And what else went wrong in what should have been the mission for liberation? In the second episode of this series Iraq: Legacy of War, brought to you by Intelligence Squared, host Manveen Rana, is joined again by Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House; and Clare Short, who was Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003. To listen to the whole series now please subscribe via Intelligence Squared Premium on Apple Podcasts ..read more

Exactly twenty years ago today on the 20th March 2003, the US along with its allies launched a shock and awe bombing campaign on Iraq. It marked the start of the invasion - and occupation - of Iraq - a defining moment in modern history and contemporary politics. In the first episode of this series Iraq: Legacy of War brought to you by Intelligence Squared, we’ll be taking a deep dive into key moments on the road to war. From understanding Saddam’s rule in the 1980s and the significance of the first Gulf War, to the role of intelligence reports, domestic politics and the Special Relationship be ..read more

In 2015, Intelligence Squared staged the ultimate clash of civilisations: Greece vs Rome. Boris Johnson, at that time Mayor of London and ardent classicist, made the case for Greece; while Mary Beard, today Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Sheffield and known for her extensive career as a broadcaster and writer, championed Rome. As we revisit this archive debate held in the pre-Brexit, pre-pandemic era, it's fascinating to observe how history would soon be shaped by some of the figures on stage and whose actions are the subject of much divisive debate today. Our host for ..read more

Ever since she was a young child, journalist Hayley Campbell has been fascinated by death. It's the theme of her new book, All the Living and the Dead: An Exploration of the People Who Make Death Their Life’s Work, which has been acclaimed by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Nigella Lawson and Tuppence Middleton. In conversation with writer Blanche Girouard, Campbell relates the encounters she has had with the people who make a living by working with the dead, including mass fatality investigators, embalmers and a former executioner who is responsible for ending 62 lives. This episode contains discus ..read more

We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread connecting ancient Greece to modern Europe, from Plato to NATO. But what if the idea itself is deeply flawed? Historian and archaeologist Naoíse Mac Sweeney's recent book, The West: A New History of an Old Idea, argues that our understanding of the West is deeply misleading and obscures the rich diversity of our past. Drawing on the lives of characters throughout history – including a formidable Roman matriarch and an unconventional Islamic scholar – Mac Sweeney says that the dominant narrative of Western history is an invention which ..read more

We have some really exciting news for you, we've launched a brand new podcast – Intelligence Squared Arts & Culture. Join us every week as we delve into the artistic and cultural moments, movements and conversations that have shaped, and are still shaping, our world. Over the years we’ve produced hundreds of Arts and Culture debates, live events, discussions and interviews, working with some of the world's greatest minds, including Kate Winslet, Salman Rushdie, Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Hitchens, Bernardine Evaristo, Tom Hiddleston, Stephen Fry and many others. Search Intellig ..read more

International Women's Week on Intelligence Squared. Feminism is not a monolith; often in the western world to help understand the history of feminism we refer to the model of the different waves of feminism, which sets out to define the trajectory of certain fights and milestones, such as the right to vote and access to contraception. But what does this version of history include and who does it exclude? In this discussion, Professor Lucy Delap from the University of Cambridge, and Shreeta Lakhani from SOAS University of London, discuss the societal structures around the world which have oppre ..read more

International Women's Week on Intelligence Squared. There are seven necessary sins for women and girls, that's according to Egyptian writer and activist Mona Eltahawy. Anger, ambition, profanity, violence, attention, lust, and power, are all attributes that the patriarchy sees as vices for women, she says, but these should be harnessed as virtues. On this episode of the podcast, which was recorded in 2021, Mona was joined in conversation by physicist and broadcaster Helen Czerski to discuss how women and girls can tap into their inner fury, and rather than surviving the patriarchy, they can di ..read more

International Women's Week on Intelligence Squared. "My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream." On this episode we hearing about, and from, the Afghan women who are telling their own stories, in their own words. In 2022, when this conversation was recorded, the first anthology of fiction written by Afghan women was published in English by UNTOLD, a writer development programme for marginalised writers in areas of conflict and post-conflict. In this episode we hear from three women from the UNTOLD writers ..read more