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.
Can the defense of human rights be reconciled with guerilla warfare? David Copello offers an in-depth reinterpretation of the history of these complex struggles that have shaken Argentine society to its core.
Jeanne Tsai and Batja Mesquita show how emotions are shaped by cultural logics that orient our relationships and judgments. Their conversation raises a broader question: what does it mean to understand others in culturally plural societies?
At a time when Chinese capitalism is in search of an ethic, entrepreneurs are reinventing the old Confucian merchant.
What effects have economic rationalization had on public services? Nadège Vezinat presents a nuanced picture of how institutional dynamics weaken the welfare state’s bureaucracy, agents, and the rights of beneficiaries.
About: Arnaud Orain, Le Monde confisqué. Essai sur le capitalisme de la finitude, Flammarion
About: Anne Ibos-Augé, Les femmes et la musique au Moyen Âge, éditions du Cerf
About: Éric Dacheux et Daniel Goujon, Théorie délibérative des valeurs, Presses universitaires de Provence
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 going on holiday for the summer, and will resume its publication schedule in September. In the meantime, we present you with a weekly roundup of our most recent essays and reviews. Our second summer selection features portraits of prominent intellectual figures: Albert Camus, René Dumont, Ronald Dworkin, Joan W. Scott and Max Weber.
Over the past few months, Books and Ideas has been running a series of interviews with leading contemporary scholars, who took the time to discuss their particular topics of research with us. For the Christmas season, we have put together a selection of seven discussions with intellectuals across the humanities and sciences: sociology, history, comparative literature, neuro-biology, anthropology and political science.
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 digital tools, their relationship to political power and capitalism.
For more than thirty years, Joan Scott has been informing and transforming both our history and the way we write history, while encouraging us to question categories and change our modes of thinking. From class struggle to sex differentiation, sexual emancipation and race, she proposes a critical analysis of Republican rhetoric to undermine naturalized forms of inequality.
Leading 19th century statesman, political economist, architect of the 1860 commercial treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and campaigner for peace between European nations, Michel Chevalier had also been a dominant voice in the Romantic socialism of Saint-Simonianism: the eclectic nature of his thought would lend itself to a particular vision of Europe, forerunner of today’s European Union.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
Nous sommes de plus en plus attachés à nos forêts, que nous n’entretenons pourtant pas suffisamment. Comment dans ces conditions lutter contre les incendies qui nous menacent lors des étés caniculaires ?
Longtemps marquée par le franquisme, l’histoire de la guerre d’Espagne se renouvelle aujourd’hui, nourrie par les expériences vécues. En mettant en évidence les dynamiques de fascisation et d’internationalisation, peut-on déplacer le regard vers un nouveau récit du conflit ?
Comment le passage d’une classe à l’autre, longtemps pensé comme une aventure individuelle, peut-il devenir un levier d’émancipation collective ? C. Jaquet reprend, à partir de Marx et de Spinoza, la question de l’abolition des classes.
À propos de : Stefan C. Aykut et Amy Dahan, La mutation climatique, Presses de Sciences Po
À propos de : Zoé Grumberg, Militer en minorité ? Le « secteur juif » du Parti communiste français après la Libération, PUR
À propos de : Gabrielle Radica, La famille des classiques, ENS Éditions
