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.
Has the idea of value lost value? By considering the concept in its plurality, Éric Dacheux and Daniel Goujoun make a case for an economy that is social, ecological, and deliberative.
Jeanne Tsai and Batja Mesquita show how emotions are shaped by cultural logics that orient our relationships and judgments. Their conversation raises a broader question: what does it mean to understand others in culturally plural societies?
Céline Marty offers an in-depth interpretation and contextualization of André Gorz’s philosophical oeuvre. Through a careful examination of his vision of a society of subjects that are truly autonomous—in work as in life—she sheds light on the coherence and radicalness of this highly original form of ecosocialism.
How does art acquire commercial value? In this book, two historians concentrate on the “first market” for art, which exists prior to the resale market and speculative strategies. It examines the decisive moment when an artwork leaves the studio, the artist sets their price, and the artwork reaches the public.
About: Sacha Todorov, De la City à la ZAD. Une brève histoire des carnavals militants, Classiques Garnier
About: Isabelle Dasque, Le pouvoir des femmes de diplomates, XIXe-XXIe siècles, Nouveau Monde Éditions
About: Axelle Brodiez-Dolino, ATD Quart Monde, une histoire transnationale. La lutte contre la pauvreté, d’un bidonville à l’Onu, Presses universitaires de France
The female silhouette – understood as the body’s visible form and socially perceived appearance – has long been shaped by social norms. In the age of social media, these norms are intensifying, prompting, in response, the rise of so-called “body-positive” movements.
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.
Disasters and the tragedies that they entail accumulate, along with human and social science research trying to grasp the significance of their repetition. The aim of the dossier launched today by Books & Ideas is to comprehend the nature of these studies.
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.
Is it really the case, as is often alleged, that money decides everything about elections? As the US presidential election is looming, La Vie des idées/Books & Ideas and Public Books team up to examine the influence of money in today’s electoral democracies.
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.
How do scientific discoveries and progress come about? Against an idealist and triumphalist conception of the history of science, Simon Schaffer’s oeuvre examines science in the making, in close proximity to its practices and actors. Far from diminishing its prestige, this approach restores science to the central place it occupied in Old Regime societies.
Among the recipients of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was Elinor Ostrom, for her analysis of economic governance, especially in relation to the commons. While this choice took many in the profession by surprise, her life-long quest for an understanding of successful common property resource management holds important lessons for our future.
Le film d’Emmanuel Marre parvient à restituer, non pas l’intériorité inaccessible d’un homme sous Vichy, mais les conditions concrètes dans lesquelles il a agi, ainsi que les effets politiques de ses actes.
À partir de terrains inédits, un ouvrage collectif documente la robustesse de la thèse de la Reproduction, 55 ans après sa parution. Ce faisant, il livre une histoire de la sociologie de l’éducation française depuis les années 1960.
Certaines entreprises affichent des valeurs éthiques pour redorer leur image. Mais comment celles-ci sont-elles reçues, appropriées, négociées ou contestées par les salariés ?
Claudia Feld et Marina Franco, Crimes contre l’humanité à l’ESMA. Anatomie d’un centre de détention clandestin en Argentine (1976-1983), Anamosa
À propos de : Jonathan Thomas, Le Disque politique en France 1929-1939, Presses Universitaires de Rennes
À propos de : Stéphane Beaud, Zinedine Zidane, La Découverte
