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.
Against the trend towards experts having exclusive control over technological development — justified on the grounds of the public’s alleged incompetence — Adeline Barbin argues that citizens should be given greater power so as to ensure that techniques are consistent with democratic values.
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.
How can we move beyond the double deadlock of state socialism and market capitalism? For Lea Ypi, returning to Kant and the Enlightenment offers a perspective to provide a new ground to freedom as social responsibility, and to open up towards a cosmopolitan horizon against the authoritarianism of profit.
We would rather not see or even think about our waste, but it has a lot to tell us about our habits, our lives, and more importantly, about what we are doing to our world today.
Marx misunderstood Proudhon: he criticized him for neglecting the relations of production, when in fact the French anarchist was interested in the political subjugation that, in his view, private property inevitably causes.
About: Dimitri Tilloi d’Ambrosi, Le Régime romain, Presses universitaires de France
Reviewed: Georgina Adam, The Rise and Rise of the Art Private Museum, Lund Humphries
About: Raphaël Morera, Une histoire au fil de l’eau. Paris et son environnement, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle, Éditions de l’EHESS
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.
In order to better grasp protests and social movements in China, whose number has impressively swollen in recent years, Books&Ideas presents a dossier on the evolution of social mobilization and on the representation of social instability in this country.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change is three years old this week but is already under attack. In support of further necessary action to address the changing climate, Public Books & La Vie des Idées offer a collaborative series of articles examining the intersection of climate change and capitalism.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be back at the end of August. In the meantime, here is a selection of interviews, reviews and essays on popular music published over the past year.
Jane Mansbridge has made a major contribution to political theory. She has spent her life combining empirical research with a theoretical approach, and has played a vital role in developing the critique of rational choice and the study of democracy as a permanent process continually in flux.
In an innovative study that returns Albert Camus’ early works to their rightful place in the canon, Laurent Bove suggests we should view Camus as a philosopher of immanence and of acquiescence to the joy of the world. This reading is enlightening as far as Camus’ thoughts on history are concerned, but tends to gloss over the ruptures that run though his work, which is driven with multiple tensions.
Among the recipients of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was Elinor Ostrom, for her analysis of economic governance, especially in relation to the commons. While this choice took many in the profession by surprise, her life-long quest for an understanding of successful common property resource management holds important lessons for our future.
Face à la défaite de 1940, Marc Bloch mettait en accusation le système d’enseignement. Notre temps appelle à relire son diagnostic.
Les ouvriers peinent à se faire élire dans les communes où ils sont pourtant majoritaires. Julian Mischi, à partir de l’étude de trois villes, s’interroge sur cette marginalisation.
Le populisme continue à alimenter la veine éditoriale. L’originalité du livre de l’historien Marc Lazar tient à la focale mise sur la France : elle en serait le berceau.
À propos de : Frédéric Ramel, Espace mondial, Presses de Sciences Po
À propos de : Alexia Blin, À l’assaut de l’abondance. Socialisme et consommation du XIXe siècle à nos jours, Puf
À propos de : Markus Hinterleitner, Blaming bureaucracy. Reckoning with a problematic political activity, Oxford University Press ; Julie Gervais, Claire Lemercier & Willy Pelletier, La haine des fonctionnaires, Éditions Amsterdam
