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.
It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that Byzantine studies acquired their official scientific and academic status, after a long process involving rigorous selection of the documents that have survived to the present day.
In an era marked by ideological conflict and geopolitical rivalry between the two superpowers, France managed to chart its own course, far from traditional bipolar frameworks.
What is the nature of the distinctive rationality that underpins Cleisthenes’ reform, which many see as the birth of Greek democracy? What social mechanisms, civic experiences, and forms of vernacular knowledge made this new system of political organization possible?
About Jeanne Guien, Le Désir de nouveautés. L’obsolescence au cœur du capitalisme (XVe-XXIe siècle), La Découverte
About: Laurent Jaffro, Le miroir de la sympathie. Adam Smith et le sentimentalisme, Vrin
About: Patrick Boucheron, Peste Noire, Seuil
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.
Is there still room for hope at the White House?
How to combat growing inequalities and injustice in a given country? Recent research suggests that solutions lie in better understanding and controlling access to education and working conditions but also in regulating tax havens and the salaries of executives.
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.
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.
By asserting that structuralism is a fruitful approach to kinship relations or the difference between the sexes, Françoise Héritier radically renewed anthropological methodology. Her life’s work has also shown us that scientific commitment goes hand-in-hand with societal involvement.
Richard Hoggart (1918-2014), a poor child who went onto become a university professor, was the epitome of a successful scholarship student. The trajectory of this “exemplary counter-example” sheds light on the mechanisms of social reproduction when they prove inoperative and the distance that can be traveled from one’s native milieu.
Contre la domination technique qui uniformise les milieux, Gilles Clément appelle à l’humilité écologique : faire avec le vivant plutôt que le dominer. Dans son « jardin en mouvement », aléatoire et diversité révèlent notre interdépendance avec la terre.
Face à l’embrasement du Proche-Orient, une crise plus profonde se dessine : celle d’un droit international qui vacille, fissurant les promesses universalistes du système multilatéral. Comment, dans la violence, se reconfigurent les rapports de pouvoir à l’échelle mondiale ?
Une vaste synthèse restitue la diversité et la complexité des activités techniques et le sens qu’elles prennent dans la société contemporaine.
À propos de : Sophie Guérard de Latour, Le multiculturalisme à l’épreuve du féminisme, Vrin
À propos de : Célia Keren, La Cause des enfants. Humanitaire et politique pendant la guerre d’Espagne (1936-1939), Anamosa
À propos de : Stéphane Füzessery, La destruction de Berlin. De l’explosion urbaine à Germania (1860-1945), La Découverte
