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 a stimulating and well-informed essay, Sandra Hoibian refutes the idea that French society is becoming fragmented and suggests ways to measure a vague concept: social cohesion.
In their recent research about Israeli politics, Noam Gidron and his coauthors explore the country’s affective polarization, the support for the judicial overhaul, Likud’s populism, and the relations between them.
In this collection of essays, Jean-Claude Schmitt continues his examination of medieval images. Considering the topic from a semantic, historical, and artistic perspective, he explores how the medieval West thought about images and, at times, through images.
Digitally distributed television series are one of the key forms of contemporary entertainment. By analyzing this distinctive form of consumption, it is possible to explain these consumers’ relationship to time, narratives, and decision-making.
About: Pascal Marichalar, La Montagne aux étoiles, La Découverte
About: Justine Lacroix, Les valeurs de l’Europe. Un enjeu démocratique, Collège de France éditions
Olivier Mahéo, De Rosa Parks au Black Power : Une histoire Populaire des mouvements noirs, 1945-1970, Presses Universitaires de Rennes
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.
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.
How can we define democracy today? What role does or should the people play in the democratic process ? Through its summer selection, Books&Ideas offers to rediscover a group of four interviews and reviews, published in 2015 and 2016, which have tackled these questions through the prism of history, philosophy and political sciences.
As populism is rising on a global level, Books & Ideas offers a series on media politics in East Asian countries, to be published over the next two weeks. Though situations are extremely diverse, they can teach us a lot on the relationship between the state and journalists in authoritarian contexts. What role is left for the media to play in non-democracies?
A selection of five essays and reviews recently published in Books&Ideas discusses the legacy and renewal of social class studies in France, Great-Britain and India.
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.
Rediscovering an activist thinker who was at the origins of eco-feminism, but remains unknown. Her work inspired an extremely heterogeneous movement, but has her ambition to concretely transform the social, economic and political organisation of society been pursued?
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.
La silhouette féminine est depuis longtemps l’objet de normes sociales. À l’heure des réseaux sociaux, ces normes s’intensifient et provoquent en réaction des mouvements « body-positifs ».
Regroupant des études sur des sources longtemps peu mobilisées (images, objets, vestiges) dans le cadre de l’histoire de l’esclavage, paraît la première publication du comité scientifique du programme « Routes des personnes mises en esclavage. Résistance, Liberté et Héritage » de l’UNESCO.
On a découpé l’espace en méridiens non seulement pour s’y orienter, mais aussi pour délimiter les frontières ou répartir les ressources. Une manière très occidentale de mettre la main sur le monde.
À propos de : Quentin Skinner, Liberty as Independence. The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal, Cambridge University Press
Abbès Zouache, La croisade. Une histoire partagée, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale
À propos de : Georgina Adam, L’essor des musées privés dans le monde, BeauxArts éditions
