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.
Why do we believe that our societies are freer, more prosperous or more democratic thanks to the institution of private property rather than in spite of it?
As multilateral cooperation is increasingly under attack, Katerina Linos challenges certain misperceptions about the role of international institutions, particularly the European Union, and emphasizes their capacity for action in times of multiple crises.
By shedding light on alternative ways of life that have hitherto been kept in the shadows, Constance Rimlinger shows that ecofeminist utopias are a reality that seeks emancipation from capitalism and patriarchy.
Based on a collective survey, Christine Détrez intends to deconstruct the term ‘crush’ and explores the social meanings underlying the many ways young people aged between 12 and 25 form relationships and learn about love.
About : Julie Pagis, Le prophète rouge, La Découverte
About: Julie Madon, Faire durer les objets. Pratiques et ressources dans l’art de déconsommer, Les Presses de Sciences Po
About: Fabrice Langrognet, Neighbours of Passage: A Microhistory of Migrants in a Paris Tenement, 1882–1932, Routledge
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.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is a selection of essays, reviews and interviews published over the past year, exploring the relationship between music and politics.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection focuses on China today, its uses of digital technologies to govern, and the political theories developed by its intellectuals.
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.
Rorty made conversation a philosophical genre in its own right, which led him to reject any distinctions he considered futile: between analytic and continental philosophy, between the Enlightenment and postmodernity, between philosophy and literature.
Michel Crozier’s work was shaped by the conviction that organizational phenomena create society. He helped pioneer the tools for analyzing groups established to carry out a common project according to a specific system of action and rules of the game.
For more than thirty years, Joan Scott has been informing and transforming both our history and the way we write history, while encouraging us to question categories and change our modes of thinking. From class struggle to sex differentiation, sexual emancipation and race, she proposes a critical analysis of Republican rhetoric to undermine naturalized forms of inequality.
Pourquoi la connaissance scientifique ne déclenche-t-elle pas l’action politique requise ? Au-delà du déni ou de l’impuissance, la cause en est peut-être plus profondément dans l’occultation structurelle de nos conditions d’existence.
Une équipe franco-allemande a analysé les photos – devenues iconiques – de l’arrivée des Juifs hongrois à Auschwitz en 1944. Il s’agit autant de documenter le meurtre de masse que de comprendre le processus de construction de l’album.
L’histoire des parcs d’Afrique de l’Est met en scène des « gentlemen-experts » postcoloniaux désireux de recréer le « paradis terrestre ». Leur pseudo-écologie aristocratique doit être remplacée par une authentique écologie populaire.
Recensé : Bruno Dumézil, Charlemagne, Puf
À propos de : Jonas Pardo et Samuel Delor, Petit manuel de lutte contre l’antisémitisme. Reconnaître, décrypter, combattre, Éditions du commun
À propos de : Dominique Connan, Faire partie du club. Élites et pouvoir au Kenya, CNRS Éditions
