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.
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 going on holiday for the summer, and will resume its publication schedule in September. In the meantime, we present to you a weekly roundup of our most recent essays and reviews. Our first summer selection features compelling interviews on subjects as varied as food and media studies, African-American history, quantum physics, Russian political culture, and Muslim-Jewish relations.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is a selection of essays, reviews and interviews published over the past year, exploring the relationship between music and politics.
“Do we have the right to make bets on the future of mankind?” Forty-one years after being the first ecologist candidate in a presidential campaign and publishing his manifesto book, René Dumont’s intuitions and warnings have lost little of their relevance.
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.
According to Nancy Fraser, the renewal of socialism requires a conflation of activism and political theory; indeed, emancipation can only exist on the basis of equal participation in all spheres of life, and can only be understood in terms of social struggles, which today appear in multiple forms.
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
