Books & Ideas is the English-language mirror website of La Vie des Idées, a free online journal which has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate since 2007.
Popular sovereignty and the rule of law are inseparable: the idea that there could be “illiberal democracies” is groundless and plays into the hands of populists.
In their recent research about Israeli politics, Noam Gidron and his coauthors explore the country’s affective polarization, the support for the judicial overhaul, Likud’s populism, and the relations between them.
The American civil rights movement was more complex than is generally realized. Olivier Mahéo reconstructs its story by considering the marginalized voices and internal conflicts that are often overlooked.
Is France heading to the right, as everyone seems to think? According to Vincent Tiberj, it all depends on how this rightward turn is defined. For now, the French prefer the left’s values.
About: Emmanuelle Durand, L’envers des fripes. Les vêtements dans les plis de la mondialisation, Premier Parallèle
About: Frédéric Keck, Préparer l’imprévisible. Lévy-Bruhl et les sciences de la vigilance, Puf
About: Frédéric Porcher, La « question-Nietzsche ». Les normes au carrefour du vital et du social, Vrin
A rumour is circulating in some African countries: the French state is organising penis thefts to offset declining fertility. The rumour, spread by Russian propaganda, has become fake news.
The American sociologist Harrison White made a vital contribution to the development of social network analysis. Besides his work in this field, his theoretical synthesis and his understanding of social formations have influenced a variety of fields such as the sociology of art and economic sociology.
Ukraine’s water networks have been mobilized since the start of the war in 2014. Infrastructure workers are some of the last to leave settlements attacked by the Russian army. Water systems and people are resisting but are reaching the limits of their capacity to adapt to violence and disruptions.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change is three years old this week but is already under attack. In support of further necessary action to address the changing climate, Public Books & La Vie des Idées offer a collaborative series of articles examining the intersection of climate change and capitalism.
The June protests which shook Brazil in 2013 stunned the world. This dossier, published by Books&Ideas, discusses the main issues at the core of these protests, analyzing them in the light of previous mobilizations and explaining why they are essential to the understanding of contemporary Brazil.
During the Christmas season, Books and Ideas offers a selection of reviews and essays that tackle the subject of cities and the issues they raise as complex centers of urban life: how could we live better in them? How to reduce the inequalities they create? Can they become more sustainable? The following texts cast a new light on all of these questions.
Fred Block & Margaret Somers, two key members of an international network of scholars appealing to Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece of 1944, forcefully argue that it constitutes a critical resource for understanding not only the nature and origins of the market economy but also its recurrent crises, including the current one.
A highly respected figure in African studies, Jack Goody has become a distinctive voice in the torrent of academic critiques of western ethnocentrism. His work, spanning more than sixty years, has been based on a single ambition: comparison, for the sake of more accurately locating European history within Eurasian and world history.
Books & Ideas is going on holiday for the summer, and will resume its publication schedule in September. In the meantime, we present you with a weekly roundup of our most recent essays and reviews. Our second summer selection features portraits of prominent intellectual figures: Albert Camus, René Dumont, Ronald Dworkin, Joan W. Scott and Max Weber.
À distance des mythes et des fantasmes, Sébastien Bourdon retrace l’histoire des « antifas » et décrit les modalités d’un engagement qui ne se limite pas à la lutte contre l’extrême droite.
Ghassan Hage montre comment la physique du social élaborée par Bourdieu permet de penser les formes de domination contemporaines à travers ce qu’il appelle une « écologie existentielle ».
Deux sociologues allemands ont cherché à dresser un portrait psychique des électeurs d’extrême droite. Les promesses non tenues par la société libérale expliquent le désir de destruction au cœur de l’identité fasciste.
À propos de : Daniel Cohen, Une brève histoire de l’économie, Albin Michel
À propos de : Arlette Farge, Ils ont écrit leurs visages. Signalements de galériens et de délinquant⸱e⸱s au XVIIIe siècle, Mētis Press
À propos de : Fabrice Teroni, L’ombre du doute. Une analyse des Méditations métaphysiques de Descartes, Elliot
