By a two-time debating world champion, a dazzling look at how good arguments can transform your life—and the world—for the better.

Everyone debates, in some form, most days. Sometimes we do it to persuade; other times to learn, discover a truth or simply to express something about ourselves. We argue to defend ourselves, our work and our loved ones. We do it to get our way or just to get ahead.

Over the course of a lifetime practising and teaching debate, Bo Seo has made a successful career out of arguing. In the past few years, however, he’s noticed how we’re not only arguing more but getting worse at it—a trend reflected in our increasingly polarised politics.

Tracing his own journey from timid child to world champion, as well as those of illustrious participants in the sport from Socrates to Sally Rooney, Malcolm X to Nelson Mandela, Seo shows how the skills of debating—information gathering, truth finding, lucidity, organisation and persuasion—are often the cornerstones of successful careers and happy lives. Along the way, he draws insights from its strategies and storied history to provide the listener with an unforgettable toolkit to use debate as a means to improve their own. This audiobook is an everyperson’s guide to disagreeing well so that the outcome of having had an argument is better than not having it at all. Taking listeners on a thrilling intellectual adventure into the eccentric and fascinating subculture of competitive debate, The Art of Disagreeing Well proves that good-faith debate can enrich and improve our lives, friendships and democracies—and in the process, our world.