Battle of Ideas 2008 1 & 2 November, London

The Battle of Ideas 2008 was a two-day festival of high-level, thought-provoking debate organised by the Institute of Ideas and hosted by the Royal College of Art.

 Battle News

Battle of Ideas 2008 on video

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Keynote Battles in Print published

From 1968 radicals to leadership today, taking in culture, progress, capitalism and even truth along the way.

To the essays

 Reading for Battle

The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction, Neville Mars & Adrian Hornsby

Religion remains fundamental to US politics, Susan Jacoby

Time to no platform 'no platform', Dennis Hayes & Richard Reynolds

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 Battles in Print & Battle Talks

The Truth? - you must be making it up!, Sarah Boyes

Radicalism then and now: what’s changed since 1968?, Maria Grasso

Capitalism, the financial crisis, and us, Dolan Cummings

+ All Battles in Print + All Battle Talks

 Speakers include
Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at the universities of Oxford and Warwick; chair of Neuroscience Research Partnership, Singapore
George Brock, international editor, The Times; ex-president, World Editors Forum.
Frank Field, MP, Labour MP for Birkenhead; co-chair, Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration; author, Neighbours from Hell: The Politics of Behaviour
Christopher Frayling, rector, Royal College of Art; Professor of Cultural History, RCA; chairman, Arts Council England.
Frank Furedi, professor of sociology, University of Kent, Canterbury; author, Politics of Fear, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?, Invitation to Terror and Paranoid Parenting.
Leela Gandhi, professor of English, University of Chicago; author Affective Communities: anticolonial thought, fin-de-siècle radicalism, and the politics of friendship; founding co-editor, Postcolonial Studies journal.
Mick Hume, editor-at-large, spiked; columnist, The Times
Susan Jacoby, author, The Age of American Unreason; programme director, Centre for Inquiry - NYC; fellow, Centre for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library.
Bronwen Maddox, chief foreign commentator, The Times; author In Defence of America
Ashis Nandy, senior honorary fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi; recipient of Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize (2007); author, omnibus edition of writing, Exiled at Home, Return from Exile, and A Very Popular Exile.
Lionel Shriver, novelist, We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Post-Birthday World; commentator for the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.
Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine, University of Manchester; poet; author, The Hand: A Philosophical Inquiry into Human Being
Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator, Financial Times
+ Full list of speakers

 Festival Buzz

Watch Battle of Ideas 2008 video...

"A rare opportunity to debate first hand with those involved in the great issues of our time."
Chris Rapley, director, Science Museum

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The Battle of Ideas is produced by
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