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.
Drawing on a socio-historical study of the construction of astronomical observatories on the island of Hawai‘i, Pascal Marichalar shows that scientific policies can no longer be considered separately from their ecological and social impacts.
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.
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.
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.
À propos de : Vincent Tiberj, La droitisation française. Mythe et réalités (France’s rightward turn: myths and realities), Puf
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
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.
This dossier examines the recently reopened debate on regional integration in Asia. What are the obstacles to the construction of an Asian Union? How is the issue tackled in Japan, China or Australia?
The current world-wide demand for “real” democracy as embodied in the Indignados (15-M) movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement reiterates long-lasting frustrations as regards representative government and the incompleteness of democratic experiences throughout the world. This dossier gathers interviews and essays by renowned scholars on the conception of democracy as an on-going experience and not as a finished model.
The last year has been extremely tough for Europe as a political idea. The debt crisis, the rise of the radical right, repeated and widespread attacks against immigrants, foreigners, but also the very concept of supranational solidarity have seemed to bring one of the richest regions of the globe to the brink of collapse. Is the situation as hard as it has been made to look? And where should Europe’s efforts first turn to?
Although now considered a pseudo-science, phrenology was tremendously successful in its Victorian heyday. Tracing the intellectual and scientific journey of George Combe, the ’science’s most prominent promoter in Great Britain, this paper addresses the phrenologists’ little-known contribution to the ’social question’ debate of the day, and the ambiguities of their social gospel.
Ronald Coase (1910-2013), the 1991 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is famous for his oft-quoted and just as often misunderstood “theorem.” His seminal works on transaction costs, property rights, and regulation continue to stimulate a rich reflection in economics and beyond.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
À Los Angeles, la résistance des habitants et des pouvoirs publics à la politique anti-migrants manifeste l’ampleur du militantisme populaire. On voit s’engager là une lutte majeure pour la souveraineté territoriale.
Dans le sillage du renouveau des études sur les épidémies, la peste de Marseille (1720-1722) constitue un épisode important, tant du point de vue documentaire que de celui de l’histoire de la maladie, que Frédéric Jacquin tente d’approcher en enquêtant sur le vécu des acteurs concernés.
À combien doit-on estimer le prix d’une vie pour interdire les chaudières au fioul ? Pourquoi la tarification du carbone reste-t-elle compliquée ? Le changement climatique va coûter cher, Fanny Henriet revient sur les propositions des économistes pour l’atténuer.
Ghassan Hage, Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Being, Duke University Press
Carolin Amlinger et Oliver Nachtwey, Zerstörungslust. Elemente des demokratischen Faschismus, Suhrkamp
À propos de : Daniel Cohen, Une brève histoire de l’économie, Albin Michel
