Tim Marshall on the Power of Geography, Part One

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm head of programming, Connor Boyle. We welcome back the best-selling author, journalist, and foreign affair specialist, Tim Marshall, for this episode. Tim is the author of the hugely popular Politics a Play series of books. Which used geography as a measure of how the world works. His chart-topping titles include Prisoners of Geography, Worth Dying For, The Power and Politics of Flags, and the recent edition, The Future of Geography, How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World. Before being a popular author, Tim was for many years a foreign correspondent for outlets including Sky News and the BBC. Listeners may remember our event with Tim earlier in 2024, and that event was so popular and thought provoking that we've given the people what they want, and he's back now for another round. Joining Tim Marshall in conversation at London's Kidogan Hall was science communicator Helen Cherski. This is the first installment of our in-depth discussion. Intelligence Square Premium subscribers can get early access to the full length conversation straight away, including content that isn't available anywhere else.

Head to intelligence square dot com slash membership to find out more or hit the IQ two extra button on Apple. Now let's join our host, Helen Cherski, live on stage with Tim Marshall. Thank you. Isn't it exciting to be here in this lovely hall? It's always nice to see a very enthusiastic intelligence squared audience. As you heard, I'm Helen Chereski now. Tonight we are going to deal with the complications of the world, but maybe try and view them through a lens which well w which helps us make some sense of them. So we know that it's really difficult. You know, we hear on the news, we we read online, the world is a really complicated place. And I think a lot of us I certainly spend a lot of my time trying to piece together these jigsaw pieces.

In a way that makes some sense. And of course, there's lots of lenses to view the world through financial, political, historical, economic. But For all our impressive science and technology and you know whatever the whims of a few tech billionaires, we are still living physical lives in physical places. And the geography of the place where we live still matters. And of course, explaining how that works is what Tim Marshall is extremely well known for. He's a leading authority on on foreign affairs with more than thirty years of reporting experience. He was a diplomatic editor at Sky News and before that worked for the BBC and has reported from countries and conflicts all around the world. And of course he is the author of the number one Sunday Times bestsellers Prisons of Geography, the power of geography, uh, the future of geography, there's lots of geography and all. If you don't like geography, this might not be the event for you. And also the prisons of geography quiz book, if you want to have arguments. That first thing I thought was that would generate arguments over the Christmas dinner table, at least in my family. So this is what we're going to be discussing. Discussing and here's how it's gonna work. We're gonna talk on stage for around an hour, get stuck into the a broad range of issues, and then

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