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.
Thirty years after La Nuit de la Saint-Barthélemy (Saint Bartholomew’s Night), Denis Crouzet revisits the massacres of August 1572—a collective purge, a royal enigma, and a popular initiative, which his new book illuminates with bold erudition by reintroducing confessional violence, with all its historical depth, into the story.
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.
About: Paulin Ismard et Arnaud Macé, La Cité et le nombre. Clisthène d’Athènes, l’arithmétique et l’avènement de la démocratie, Les Belles Lettres
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
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 this virtual roundtable published in partnership with Public Books, four participants from France, Germany and the US re-visit the inequalities debate sparked by Thomas Piketty’s Capital, comparing perceptions of income, economic equality and political economy.
How can we define democracy today? What role does or should the people play in the democratic process ? Through its summer selection, Books&Ideas offers to rediscover a group of four interviews and reviews, published in 2015 and 2016, which have tackled these questions through the prism of history, philosophy and political sciences.
Food is now a conspicuous topic, from culinary blogs to magazines, diet books, TV shows and contests. Yet unbeknownst to many, it often holds an underground, clandestine place in some of social science’s major works. This dossier assesses the current importance of such scholarly endeavors, known as “food studies” in the United States.
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.
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.
What distinguishes a blank canvas from an empty frame? A simple object from a readymade? What is this mysterious gap that art digs as it separates from life? Such are the questions posed by Arthur Danto, a major figure of contemporary art theory.
Le Centre Pompidou a été un modèle pour la politique culturelle française, mais aussi le témoin et victime de ses dérives, de ses impasses, de la réduction des budgets publics à la massification-marchandisation de la culture.
L’aggravation du changement climatique se fait de plus en plus visible et touche désormais même les milieux a priori les plus éloignés, comme les fonds marins. Pourtant, ceux-ci sont intégrés aux transformations du monde depuis le XVe siècle, selon des mouvements pluriels et concurrents.
La pensée néoréactionnaire qui se développe aujourd’hui sur le net est-elle la matrice idéologique du trumpisme ? Peut-être, mais il est difficile d’évaluer la réception de ses idées au-delà de cercles très restreints.
À propos de : Ziad Majed, Le Proche-Orient, miroir du monde. Comprendre le basculement en cours, La Découverte
À propos de : Guillaume Carnino, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez et Jérôme Lamy (dir.), Histoire globale des techniques, CNRS éditions
À propos de : Sophie Guérard de Latour, Le multiculturalisme à l’épreuve du féminisme, Vrin
