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.
After 1945, the geopolitical use of sport found a place in the alliances of the Cold War. Ideology and diplomacy slipped into every aspect of the practice of sports.
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.
How can we move beyond abstract architecture, where buildings are constructed without their audiences? Peter Ferretto’s method is based on observation, engagement, and the osmosis between teaching, practice, research, and social impact.
How should we characterize the regime of Tunisian President Kais Saied since his 2021 power grab? To get a sense of what is happening “inside the country,” an edited volume provides an informed and engaged interpretation of the situation.
Throughout the nineteenth century, ecological currents in the agricultural world promoted organic farming and the defense of small producers. The story of these “ecological farmers” sheds light on the forward-looking contract forged between agriculture and society.
About: Lucie Malbos, Les Peuples du Nord. De Fróði à Harald l’Impitoyable, Ier-XIe siècle, Belin
About: Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, Penguin Books
About: Nina Valbousquet, Les Âmes tièdes. Le Vatican face à la Shoah, La Découverte
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.
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.
The EU aims for net climate neutrality by 2050, utilizing the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) as its main tool. But the climate crisis demands more than market mechanisms. It requires comprehensive planning and legal frameworks that prioritize public over private interests.
In this virtual roundtable published in partnership with Public Books, four participants from France, Germany and the US re-visit the inequalities debate sparked by Thomas Piketty’s Capital, comparing perceptions of income, economic equality and political economy.
As protests against racism break out all over the world following the murder of George Floyd, Books & Ideas gathers a selection of texts examining the history of these multifaceted discriminations and of the struggles for racial justice.
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.
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.
Though poorly known in France, the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas is nonetheless essential for understanding the elementary forms of social organization and daily life. By shedding light on her academic career and personal life, this portrait rehabilitates the thought of a major intellectual.
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.
Chef de file de l’avant-garde musicale au second XXe siècle, Pierre Boulez est né le 25 mars 1925. De 1976 à 1995, il a occupé une chaire au Collège de France. Jonathan Goldman, qui a participé à l’édition de ses cours, évoque ces deux décennies d’enseignement et leur place dans le legs boulézien.
Les fortes dissensions autour du cinquantième anniversaire de la mort de Franco rappellent que l’Espagne est loin d’en avoir fini avec « ce passé qui ne passe pas ».
De l’aristocratie déclinante aux classes populaires, Pérez Galdós a dépeint les inégalités sociales qui marquent l’Espagne du XIXe siècle. Ce « Balzac espagnol » fascine le Nobel de littérature d’origine péruvienne.
À propos de : Laurent Jaffro, Le miroir de la sympathie. Adam Smith et le sentimentalisme, Vrin
Juliette Rennes, Métiers de rue. Observer le travail et le genre à Paris en 1900, EHESS
À propos de : Pascal Engel, Foucault et les normes du savoir, Eliott éditions
