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.
Books&Ideas presents a second summer selection, in which contemporary historians tell us about the future of history as a discipline, about how they research and write history, and the way history affects their bodies and minds.
At a time when Europe is equated with sovereign debt and political powerlessness, one should not forget that the foundations for a European citizenship have already been laid. Its potential for democracy needs to be interrogated, as do the cultural resources that it can rely on.
Summer is here. Books&Ideas is off on holiday. We will be back with new publications starting August 29th. In the meantime, here is a selection of essays, interviews and reviews published over the past year.
Leading 19th century statesman, political economist, architect of the 1860 commercial treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and campaigner for peace between European nations, Michel Chevalier had also been a dominant voice in the Romantic socialism of Saint-Simonianism: the eclectic nature of his thought would lend itself to a particular vision of Europe, forerunner of today’s European Union.
Thanks to his work on Greco-Roman antiquity, his intellectual curiosity, his pronounced taste for interdisciplinarity, his sense of humor, and the freedom that informs all his research, Paul Veyne is a twentieth-century historian whose work cannot be avoided. A loose cannon at the heart of the academic establishment, a deep thinker and a dilettante, Veyne invites us, through his work, to a festival of thought.
In an innovative study that returns Albert Camus’ early works to their rightful place in the canon, Laurent Bove suggests we should view Camus as a philosopher of immanence and of acquiescence to the joy of the world. This reading is enlightening as far as Camus’ thoughts on history are concerned, but tends to gloss over the ruptures that run though his work, which is driven with multiple tensions.
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
