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.
“Excited delirium” is a diagnosis that was used to absolve police officers of responsibility for the deaths of Black and Brown men. For decades, it was legitimized by a network of forensic pathologists, law enforcement agencies, and private companies that sustained this pseudoscience.
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.
The ritual massacre perpetrated by the Natchez against several hundred French settlers in Louisiana on 28 November 1729 was the starting point of a colonial violence against a tribe that lasted until its near disappearance.
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.
About: Hamadi Redissi, dir., Le pouvoir d’un seul, Diwen
About: Jean-Philippe Martin, Des paysans écologistes. Politique agricole, environnement et société depuis les années 1960, Champ Vallon
About: Lucie Malbos, Les Peuples du Nord. De Fróði à Harald l’Impitoyable, Ier-XIe siècle, Belin
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 order to better grasp protests and social movements in China, whose number has impressively swollen in recent years, Books&Ideas presents a dossier on the evolution of social mobilization and on the representation of social instability in this country.
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 focuses on ways to shift our intellectual categories.
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?
Now a well-known Chinese lawyer of the democratic dissidence in China, Zhang Sizhi was once a young nationalist, a high-ranking official in the court of Beijing and a victim of anti-rightist repression. In his memoirs, he provides a detailed and fascinating description of the profession and China in the second half of the 20th century.
Miguel Abensour profoundly renewed thinking about democracy. His political philosophy paid close attention to the desire for emancipation and was based on an original conception of utopia breaking with the mythology of the ‘ideal city’ or of a ‘good society’.
André Gorz’s multiform thought is entirely centred on liberation: from work, which prevents individuals from thriving; from consumption, which grows ever higher; and from the social system, which reduces individuals to mere pawns in a “megamachine”.
Comment les vagues de massification scolaire ont-elles affecté les stratégies des familles et, plus largement, leur rapport à l’École ? Pierre-Michel Menger, professeur au Collège de France, propose des pistes d’analyse pour éclairer une nouvelle socio-démographie de l’éducation. Entretien suivi d’un essai.
Le « délirium agité » est un diagnostic fabriqué de toutes pièces pour absoudre les officiers de police du meurtre d’hommes noirs et latinos placés sous leur responsabilité. Tout un réseau de médecins légistes, de forces de l’ordre et d’entreprises privées ont soutenu cette pseudo-science.
Comment sont écrites les séries télévisées ? L’enquête menée par M. Mille révèle un processus collectif, régi par la division du travail et les contraintes temporelles, en rupture totale avec l’image de l’auteur-réalisateur issue de la Nouvelle vague.
À propos de : Sophie Baby, Juger Franco ? Impunité, réconciliation, mémoire, La Découverte
À propos de : Mario Vargas Llosa, Benito Pérez Galdós, le regard tranquille, Le Cherche Midi
À propos de : Laurent Jaffro, Le miroir de la sympathie. Adam Smith et le sentimentalisme, Vrin
