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.
The French government’s approach to religious pluralism cannot be easily summarized, given its diversity and complexity, as well as its dependence on the contingencies of politics.
Sandra Ristovska examines how images shape judicial reasoning and the new uncertainties introduced by AI and deepfakes. These technologies amplify longstanding problems of evidence, interpretation, and inequality before the law.
To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in East Asia, a nuanced assessment of the American occupation of Japan (1945–1952) and its lasting impact on contemporary Japanese society is now available in French for the first time.
By tracing the history of the French word pute (whore), since the twelfth century, Dominique Lagorgette reveals the mechanisms of linguistic oppression at work in our societies.
About: Pierre Serna, La Révolution oubliée. Orléans, 1789-1820, CNRS Éditions
About: David Copello, Les droits humains armés. Guérillas, dictatures et démocratie en Argentine, Presses universitaires de Rennes
About: Lan Jiang Fu, Confucius revisité. Du marchand confucéen à l’entrepreneur du XXIe siècle, Hémisphères
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.
The media industry has undergone dramatic changes in its technologies and business models. To help us understand the effects of these changes on democracy, Books and Ideas takes the discussion away from simplistic dichotomies between the Internet and the so-called “traditional” press.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is our weekly selection of reviews published over the past year.
Summer is here; Books&Ideas is off on holiday. We will be back with new publications starting August 30. In the meantime, here is a selection of essays, interviews and reviews published over the past year.
Although now considered a pseudo-science, phrenology was tremendously successful in its Victorian heyday. Tracing the intellectual and scientific journey of George Combe, the ’science’s most prominent promoter in Great Britain, this paper addresses the phrenologists’ little-known contribution to the ’social question’ debate of the day, and the ambiguities of their social gospel.
Ronald Dworkin’s innovative and politically ambitious work has become essential reading in political and legal theory. Taking issue with classical political liberalism, he argues that liberty and equality are not mutually exclusive, and are indeed inseparable. And against traditional interpretations of law, he argues that law must be understood by comparing it to a collective novel, a mixture of creativity and interpretation.
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.
En 2020, le gouvernement japonais a décidé de créer les « University for International Research Excellence » (UREX), dotées de moyens importants. Objectif : créer des pôles d’excellence en matière d’innovation scientifique et technologique, capables de rivaliser avec leurs homologues dans le monde.
Les fermes-usines élèvent, abattent et découpent des centaines de milliers de porcs par an, transformant ainsi le vivant en produit et exploitant à cette fin une main d’œuvre la plupart du temps immigrée.
Elara Bertho invite à relire la Guinée de Sékou Touré à travers un corpus qui mêle discours officiels et dissidents, presse et poésie, œuvres connues et pépites accumulées à travers un long travail de terrain. Elle dresse le portrait fragmenté d’une utopie post-coloniale aux échos transcontinentaux.
À propos de : Laure Bereni, Managing Corporate Virtue. The Politics of Workplace Diversity in New York and Paris, Oxford University Press
À propos de : Véronique Brindeau, Les arbres de Nagasaki, Arléa
À propos de : Guillaume de Rougé, La France et la défense européenne dans l’après-guerre froide. Le Fil d’Ariane, 1991-2001, Presses universitaires de Rennes
