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.
Active in the fight against poverty since the 1950s, the ATD Fourth World movement has successfully combined grassroots action, research and advocacy, exerting a lasting influence on social policies in France and internationally.
Amid the never-ending crisis of the welfare state and the waning of the principle of solidarity, Sacha Lévy-Bruhl proposes a new interpretation. Starting from the idea of collective responsibility, he pursues an important goal: rethinking social protection in the twenty-first century.
What are the emancipatory prospects for women excluded from salaried work? By analyzing working-class Maghrebin women’s attitudes towards work, family, and heterosexuality, Fatma Çingi Kocadost shows the limits of individual emancipation through work.
About: Silyane Larcher et Félix Germain (dir.), Marianne est aussi noire. Luttes occultées pour l’égalité, Seuil
About: Alexandra Féret, Abdiquer la souveraineté. Politique et théologie chez Simone Weil, Vrin
About: Vanina Mozziconacci, Apprendre à philosopher en féministe, La Dispute
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.
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 questions our global consumerism, looks back in its history and analyses its legal framework.
In this virtual roundtable published in partnership with Public Books, six contributors from France, Russia and the US address the issue of contemporary Russia and its often tense relations with the West.
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?
Umberto Eco is best known to the general public for his novels and critical works in which he developed his theory of reception. Who realizes, however, that this aspect of his work is only one part of a general semiology organized around a philosophy of signs?
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.
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.
Avant de déterminer le « juste prix » d’un risque, une assurance doit déterminer le collectif au sein duquel les pertes seront partagées. Ce texte revient sur l’histoire de cette construction, des sociétés de secours mutuels aux techniques contemporaines de classification.
L’Amazonie, un terrain vierge avant l’arrivée des colonisateurs ? L’archéologie montre qu’il n’en est rien et que les peuples autochtones l’ont aménagée depuis des millénaires.
En comparant Federer aux plus grands peintres de la Renaissance, F. Lacouture entreprend de montrer ce que ce champion a de plus que les autres : une valeur esthétique irréductible à la performance. Mais peut-on considérer un sportif comme un artiste ?
À propos de : Claire Pagès, Dormir. Essai de philosophie sociale, Vrin
À propos de : Jérôme Baschet, Laurent Jeanpierre, Mondes postcapitalistes, La Découverte
A propos de : Clément Thibaud, 1815 : Fin de l’âge des révolutions ?, Puf
