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Reviews

A World Out of Key

An Interview with Michel Foucher

by Pauline Peretz & translated by John Zvesper, 16 May

Although today’s world is more interdependent than ever, it is still a jigsaw puzzle of sovereign states. One consequence of globalization is that we have to update our own mental maps, and to (...)

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Reviews

From Bombay to Mumbai

About: Gyan Prakash, Mumbai Fables, Harper Collins

by Vanessa Caru, 9 May

Gyan Prakash’s most recent book takes us on a journey through Bombay’s history, focusing on the myths and fables that have shaped how the city is represented. His ambitious project fails, however, (...)

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Reviews

The Fascination for India

About: Roland Lardinois, Scholars and Prophets. Sociology of India from France in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, New Delhi, Social Science Press.

by Jules Naudet & translated by Rohini Rangachari, 11 March

Since the 18th century, India has been portrayed in contradictory ways. While scholarly knowledge is based on the philological study of texts, literary Orientalism expresses its fascination for a (...)

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Reviews

Who Will Write Our History?

About: S. Kassow, Qui écrira notre histoire ? Les archives secrètes du ghetto de Varsovie, Grasset, 2011

by Audrey Kichelewski & translated by Michael C. Behrent, 3 October 2012

Until now, the Warsaw Ghetto archives were known to only a few specialists. The American historian Samuel Kassow presents them in a new light—as the work of a team whose mission was to describe (...)

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Essays

National Conferences in Brazil

A New Participatory Political Model

by Leonardo Avritzer, 28 September 2012

During Lula’s presidential mandates, national conferences dedicated to women issues, human rights or social assistance galvanized thousands of Brazilians. This article details who they were, which (...)

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Reviews

Energy, a Lens on World Politics

About: D. Yergin. The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World. Allen Lane, 2011

by Alden Young, 14 September 2012

An ambitious and encyclopedic book sheds new light on post-Cold War history. To Daniel Yergin, the rise of energy, economic and financial nationalisms throughout the world has been a grave threat (...)

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Essays

In the Land of Voluntarism

An interview with Claude S. Fischer

by Nicolas Duvoux, 19 April 2012

In Made in America, sociologist Claude S. Fischer develops the idea that voluntarism, not individualism, is the key feature to describe social ties in America and that this notion of voluntarism (...)

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Essays

Fukushima: The Unremitting Disaster

An Interview with Paul Jobin, sociologist

by David Bornstein & Bernard Thomann & translated by Susannah Dale, 13 April 2012

Paul Jobin, who has been monitoring workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant, provides an analysis of the Japanese government’s denial of the health implications for these workers and, more broadly, (...)

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Reviews

Cities’ Collective Mentalities

About: D. A. Bell and A. de-Shalit, The Spirit of Cities, Why Identity Matters in a Global Age, Princeton

by Alexander Tzonis, 23 March 2012

In the context of the developing regionalist current warning against the destructive effects of mindless globalization ‘flattening’ the world, Bell and de-Shalit adopt a non-positivist method. (...)

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Essays

Comparing Urban Ethoses

Response to Alexander Tzonis’ Review

by Daniel A. Bell, 23 March 2012

Responding to Alexander Tzonis’ review of Spirit of the Cities, the book on urban ethoses he wrote with Avner de-Shalit, Daniel A. Bell defends their way of doing political theory and some of (...)

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Essays

The Impossible Asian Union

An Interview with François Godement

by Bernard Thomann & translated by John Zvesper, 20 December 2011

François Godement reminds us that the process of economic and cultural integration that is currently taking place in Asia is undermined by the heavy militarization of the countries in that region, (...)

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Reviews

Investigating China

About: David Bandurski and Martin Hala, Investigative Journalism in China, University of Washington Press, 2010 ; Tong Jingrong, Investigative Journalism in China, 2011.

by Nolwenn Salmon & translated by Susannah Dale, 13 December 2011

In authoritarian China, control of the media exists, but so does control by the media. Two recent books explain how the government has strategically allowed investigative journalism to flourish, (...)

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Reviews

Israel and the European Union

About: S. Pardo & J. Peter, Uneasy Neighbors: Israel and the European Union.

by Gadi Heimann, 2 December 2011

The history of the relationship between Israel and the European Union is one of contradictions. Israel would like closer cooperation but is skeptical of Europeans’ pro-Palestinian bias; Europe (...)

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Essays

Secularism and State Feminism: Tunisia’s Smoke and Mirrors

by Augustin Jomier & translated by John Zvesper, 29 November 2011

For some time, Tunisia prided itself on championing secularism and women’s rights. This smokescreen concealing the regime’s excesses encouraged complacency in the French political class. A (...)

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Essays

When Immigration Is a Crime

by Luca d’Ambrosio & translated by Susannah Dale, 24 October 2011

Over the past few years, European Union law and national laws, particularly in France and Italy, have established repressive and utilitarian immigration policies that have equated European (...)

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Essays

Monitoring Changes in China’s Media

An Interview with David Bandurski

by Emilie Frenkiel, 30 September 2011

David Bandurski explains that, despite the ongoing control of the Party, the Chinese media and their relationship to their audience have greatly changed thanks to the growing commercialization of (...)

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Essays

Japan and Asia: The Implications of an Improved Relationship

by Guibourg Delamotte & translated by Susannah Dale, 9 September 2011

As China’s power increases, Japan is moving closer to other Asian countries. This return to Asia is not univocal, and the newly elected Democratic Party is not in a position to change the (...)

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Reviews

Recovering Privacy

About:“Gender Relations in the Private Sphere”, Laboratorium No 3, 2010

by Benjamin Cope, 13 June 2011

The latest issue of the St Petersburg based social science journal, Laboratorium, is devoted to gender sensitive ethnographies in the post-Soviet space. Despite the fact that it lacks an (...)

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Essays

Worldwide Libel

by David Chekroun & translated by Pascale Torracinta, 6 June 2011

Are English courts following in the footsteps of their French counterparts and establishing themselves as the censors of research worldwide? According to David Chekroun, “libel tourism” is on the (...)

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Essays

The Autumn of the Patriarchs

by Abdellah Tourabi & translated by Arthur Goldhammer, 18 May 2011

Two revolutions and two presidents deposed within a few weeks. Long presented as a region resistant to democratization and change, the Arab world has been shaken by the winds of rebellion, which (...)

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Essays

Suicide, Islam and Politics

On the recent events in Tunisia

by Dominique Avon & translated by John Zvesper, 6 May 2011

The revolts rocking the Maghreb were set off by a surge of suicides that greatly perplexed Islamic authorities. Were they a symptom of secularization, or even of a radical transgression of a (...)

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Essays

What It Means to Be a Sociologist in China

Interview with Jean-Louis Rocca

by Emilie Frenkiel & translated by Susannah Dale, 27 April 2011

In this interview, sociologist and sinologist Jean-Louis Rocca describes the development of Chinese sociology since its rebirth in the early 1980s. He also discusses the changes that have taken (...)

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Essays

Is China Asian?

by Emilie Frenkiel, 8 April 2011

The international context and the economic and diplomatic rapprochement between the powers currently thriving in Asia seem to reinforce the Japanese idea of creating an Asian community. But what (...)

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Reviews

Rwanda: The Steps to Genocide

About: A. Guichaoua, Rwanda, de la guerre au génocide. Les politiques criminelles au Rwanda (1990-1994)(Rwanda: From War to Genocide. Criminal Policies in Rwanda, 1990-1994) , La Découverte.

by Claudine Vidal & translated by John Zvesper, 16 March 2011

How did it come about that by 7 April 1994 a political faction had decided on and initiated the Tutsi genocide? André Guichaoua’s book investigates the Rwandan state’s genocide strategy, which was (...)

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Reviews

Profession: killer

About: N. Khan, Mohajir Militancy in Pakistan, Routledge, 2010.

by Laurent Gayer & translated by Pascale Torracinta, 25 February 2011

Nicholas Khan offers an ethnographical study of the “professional killers” of a Pakistani political party and immerses the reader in the life of these murderers. Her study opens new avenues for (...)

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Reviews

International Criminal Justice: The Contribution of the Human Sciences

About: Zolo, La justice des vainqueurs ; Lefranc, « La professionnalisation d’un militantisme réformateur du droit : l’invention de la justice transitionnelle » ; Delpla & Bessone (dir.), Peines de guerre.

by Liora Israël & translated by Arthur Goldhammer, 18 February 2011

The evolution of international criminal justice since the 1990s has spurred both scholarly study and controversy. Against those who bluntly denounce “victors’ justice” to the point of paving the way (...)

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Reviews

Bomb, Opacity, Democracy

About: A. Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret. Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb, Columbia University Press.

by Matteo Gerlini, 16 February 2011

Israel’s nuclear policy is the nation’s last taboo. Avner Cohen’s book explains that the country’s posture of nuclear opacity is incompatible with the values of a liberal democracy and that it (...)

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Reviews

A Chinese Chronicle of Everyday Discontent

About: I. Thireau, H. Linshan, Les ruses de la démocratie. Protester en Chine, Seuil.

by Jean-Louis Rocca, 28 January 2011

What institutional means are available to the Chinese people for expressing their displeasure with officialdom? Isabelle Thireau and Hua Linshan’s book is the first Western study of the xinfang, (...)

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Essays

The French Social Welfare Model, as Seen from the Polders

by Antoine Bevort, 26 January 2011

For the Dutch, the French social model seems particularly generous. However, no real comparison is possible if the facts are taken out of context. The understanding of the Dutch proverb ‘To live (...)

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Essays

J Street, the Lobby of the “Silent Majority”

A new critical voice in the American Jewish Community

by Pauline Peretz, 19 January 2011

According to its conservative rivals, J Street threatens the unity of the Jewish community and discredits the positions of the Israeli government. For liberal Jews, it represents an opportunity (...)

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Essays

Will the Wedding of Australia and Asia Ever Take Place?

by Fabrice Argounes, 22 December 2010

Where will the borders of the East Asian community end up? Australia is trying to attach itself to this evolving project but, in the eyes of its Asian partners, its western inheritance keeps it (...)

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Essays

Europe Is Afraid of Its Roma

by Jean-Baptiste Duez, 10 December 2010

Since the 1990s and the collapse of the Communist bloc, thousands of “Roma” have left Eastern Europe. Their arrival in the west, particularly France and Italy, has provoked strong negative (...)

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Essays

Ambedkar and the Critique of Caste Society

by Jules Naudet, 5 November 2010

Although less well known than Gandhi and Nehru, Ambedkar occupies a unique position in India’s collective imagination. Father of the Constitution and virulent critic of the caste system, he (...)

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Reviews

When China met Africa

About : D. Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift. The Real Story of China in Africa, Oxford University Press.

by Solange Guo Chatelard, 16 July 2010

Are fears of new forms of colonization of Africa by China justified? In a book based on solid investigation and evidence, Deborah Brautigam clears prevailing misconceptions and uncovers the (...)

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Reviews

Anti-Semitic beliefs in contemporary Poland

About : J. Tokarska-Bakir, Legendy o krwi, antropologia przesądu [Anthropology of prejudice: Blood libel myths], WAB.

by Jean-Yves Potel, 13 May 2010

Few academics have taken seriously the contents of the talk and tales that found popular anti-Semitism past and present in Poland. In an arresting book, anthropologist Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (...)

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Essays

The Russian federation faced with the challenge of regionalisms

by Annie Daubenton, 1 April 2010

Already troubled by the recognition of the independence of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian republics, many regional leaders in the Russian Federation are questioning Moscow’s control, and accuse (...)

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Essays

Castes, untouchability and social success in India

by Jules Naudet, 18 March 2010

Even if India is a caste society, social mobility is not impossible. Many years of positive discrimination policies and struggle have enabled some Dalits—the caste name of the so-called (...)

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Reviews

China and its Democratic Fiction

About : S. Veg, Fictions du pouvoir chinois, Éditions de l’EHESS.

by Emilie Frenkiel, 4 December 2009

What can literature teach us about China’s experience of democracy in the twentieth century? In an ambitious work, Sebastian Veg explores the links between fiction and democracy in his search for (...)

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Essays

Obama and the End of the African-American Mirage

by Sylvie Laurent, 9 October 2009

It was no accident that Barack Obama chose Ghana for his first presidential trip to Africa: for him, it was a way of paying homage to his illustrious predecessors while officially proclaiming an (...)

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Essays

Political change and democracy in China

An interview with Wang Shaoguang

by Emilie Frenkiel, 15 July 2009

Can Western political concepts accurately describe the Chinese political regime? In this interview, Wang Shaoguang defines democracy as “a combination of responsibility, responsiveness, and (...)

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