Magna Carta: Myth and Meaning
June 2015 will see the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, the ‘Great Charter’ which was signed at Runnymede by King John to resolve a political crisis he faced with his barons. Buried within its 69 cla...
12 Feb 20151h 2min
Art must be beautiful
In May 2011, Intelligence Squared Asia presented four leading voices in the arts to argue the motion "Art must be beautiful". Can aesthetic standards of the day dictate the long-term value of art? Who...
5 Feb 20151h
An evening with Britain's best poets
Love. Sorrow. Anger. Death. Laughter. God. Sex. Hell. Home. Only one profession can get to the heart of that lot – the poets. And not any old poets but amongst Britain's very best: Wendy Cope, Andrew...
29 Jan 20151h 26min
The High Street is dead, long live the High Street
A screen, an image, a click. Proceed to checkout. Sign for it the next day. We are the first generation to enjoy the thrill and convenience of online shopping. No queuing, no frustration at going home...
22 Jan 20151h 31min
The War on Terror was the right response to 9/11
Have the West’s efforts to eradicate Al-Qaeda around the world simply been fuelling the flames of hatred and violence? Or would we have suffered even more atrocities if we’d left the militants to plo...
15 Jan 201549min
Bernard-Henri Lévy on the Libyan intervention and universal values
Bernard-Henri Lévy is France’s best-known public intellectual, passionately committed to the causes he believes to be just. A writer, journalist, and film-maker, he has the status of a rock star in F...
8 Jan 20151h 22min
Beware of the dragon: Africa should not look to China
We all know that the Chinese are the neo-colonialists of Africa. They've plundered the continent of its natural resources, tossing aside any concern for human rights and doing deals with some of the w...
23 Des 20141h 40min
Umberto Eco In Conversation With Paul Holdengräber
The persistence of conspiracies. Grasping the infinity of lists. Writing fiction about the real. The future of books. These are some of the topics Umberto Eco discussed with Paul Holdengräber, Direct...
18 Des 20141h 33min
