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.
In this recent interview, Walzer reflects on his life of political commitment. From the creation of Dissent to the publication of the acclaimed Spheres of Justice, here is the journey of one of the most influential political theorists of the XXth century.
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.
Katharina Pistor has renewed the critique of economic inequality by showing how the institutions of private law form the lock of an unequal economic and social system.
Time is the hardest thing for us to understand, as we cannot be sure whether it exists in and of itself, or whether it can even be defined. This is an age-old conundrum, but Francis Wolff offers a new answer rooted in neither physics nor phenomenology.
Maritime spaces are the focus of the major economic, ecological, and geopolitical challenges of our time. Lest they become the site of routine legal violations (ranging from pollution to overfishing), a government of the seas is necessary.
About: Pierre-Yves Quiviger, Une philosophie du vin, Albin Michel
About: Marie-Claire Willems, Musulman. Une assignation ?, Éditions du Détour
About: Marie Cabadi, Lesbiennes et Gays au charbon : Solidarités avec les mineurs britanniques en grève, 1984-1985, EHESS
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.
Jane Mansbridge has made a major contribution to political theory. She has spent her life combining empirical research with a theoretical approach, and has played a vital role in developing the critique of rational choice and the study of democracy as a permanent process continually in flux.
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.
Food is now a conspicuous topic, from culinary blogs to magazines, diet books, TV shows and contests. Yet unbeknownst to many, it often holds an underground, clandestine place in some of social science’s major works. This dossier assesses the current importance of such scholarly endeavors, known as “food studies” in the United States.
In the U.S., in France as well with Hugues Lagrange’s book on “the denial of cultures”, culture has again become the focus of poverty studies. Our dossier on “culture of poverty” reviews this new trend and examines a notion that has paradoxically been given a new lease of life by the economic downturn, half a century after Oscar Lewis controversially introduced it.
Historians, sociologists, and social scientists in general have long tried to “think big” and “global.” The rise of Asia in the world economy has stimulated anew this attraction for the macro-level. Books and Ideas proposes to look at some of the most innovative ways this work has been done recently, in the history of ideas, of trade and cultural exchanges, economic convergences and decolonization.
Kenzaburō Ōe, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a controversial figure in Japan. And rightly so, for there are a great many contradictions in both his fictional and theoretical work. He is a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, and yet continues to celebrate the heroism of the soldier who finds glory through sacrifice.
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.
One of Albert O. Hirschman’s contributions to economic theory is a richer understanding of the concept of the “rational actor,” which, he demonstrated, possesses the deliberative capacities that democratic market societies require. This following is a profile of an economist who was also a dissident and an activist.
Ici, les concurrents risquent leur vie de plein gré, sans qu’il soit jamais question de morale ni d’idéal commun. Le corps-à-corps a remplacé la délibération. À l’heure où le président sud-coréen tente de balayer l’opposition démocratique, la politique rejoint la fiction.
Dans un essai stimulant et informé, Sandra Hoibian réfute la thèse d’une fragmentation de la société française et propose une réflexion pour mesurer une notion floue, la cohésion sociale.
Le racisme se fonde sur une conception fausse et idéologique de la race, qui ne correspond pas à la réalité. Une autre définition de la race est pourtant possible, qui n’introduise aucune hiérarchie entre les groupes.
À propos de : Onur Erdur, Schule des Südens. Die kolonialen Ursprünge der französischen Theorie, Matthes & Seitz
À propos de : Pierre Koenig, Bir Hakeim, Nouveau Monde éditions
À propos de : Johann Chapoutot, Christian Ingrao, Nicolas Patin, Le Monde nazi. 1919-1945, Éditions Tallandier
