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.
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.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is our weekly selection of reviews published over the past year.
How to renew the currently dwindling support for democratic governance? To the minds of theorists and historians, whether advocating going back to classical political traditions like Republicanism or drawing lots, or experimenting new approaches, increased political participation may be the best path to follow.
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.
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.
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.
Et pourquoi l’usage de l’IA générative serait-elle incompatible avec la création artistique ? Il y a pourtant longtemps que la notion d’auteur, seul maître à bord de son oeuvre, a fait l’objet de contestation.
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.
Usons-nous des bons termes pour décrire le changement climatique ? On peut en douter, car la crise environnementale que nous traversons est tout autant géopolitique et économique.
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
À propos de : Gabrielle Angey, Yannick Fer et Juliette Galonnier (dir.), Saisir les religions en sociologue. Enjeux et méthodes, ENS éditions
