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.
Our understanding of nature differs from that of the Greeks and Romans. From the “month of the ox” to “the forest goddess,” the ancients never thought to separate humans from the flora and fauna around them.
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.
As 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s death, a new book offers a fresh perspective on a little-known yet pivotal period in the philosopher’s life and work.
A collective work traces the emotional and psychological journeys of Holocaust survivors in the immediate postwar period. It examines both the practices of caregivers and the strategies survivors employed to reintegrate into society.
About: Gwendal Châton, Calmann-Lévy, éditeur engagé. Défendre l’antitotalitarisme dans la guerre froide des idées, Calmann-Lévy
About: Adeline Barbin, La démocratie des techniques, Hermann
About: Claire Larroque, Philosophie du déchet, Presses universitaires de France
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.
Our Books and Ideas dossier on the American presidential elections will make no forecasts - instead it will look back on four years of Democratic leadership at the White House and four years of right-wing radicalization inside and outside of the G.O.P. Whoever wins will have to deal with the Tea Party, and the record shows it will not be easy for anyone.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will resume its publication schedule on August 26. In the meantime, we present to you a weekly selection of essays and reviews published over the past year.
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.
Miguel Abensour profoundly renewed thinking about democracy. His political philosophy paid close attention to the desire for emancipation and was based on an original conception of utopia breaking with the mythology of the ‘ideal city’ or of a ‘good society’.
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.
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.
Les réformes récentes de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la recherche, et en particulier les effets des plateformes numériques Parcoursup et MonMaster, ont été à l’origine de mobilisations étudiantes. Parmi elles, le “mouvement des sans-facs”, pour qui "étudier est un droit et non un privilège".
L’Union européenne est-elle un État ? Sylvain Kahn montre qu’elle incarne, contre l’imaginaire de l’État-nation, une nouvelle forme de souveraineté supranationale.
Un recueil consacré à la pensée féministe polonaise montre la richesse du mouvement, des années 1900 au tournant queer en passant par la période socialiste. Cette histoire méconnue ouvre la voie à une généalogie et une comparaison des sororités européennes.
À propos de : Nicolas Soulas, Familles et individus à l’épreuve. Les Payan, de la révocation de l’Édit de Nantes à l’âge des révolutions, Presses Universitaires de Rennes
À propos de : Olivier Beauvallet et Yves Ternon, Robert H. Jackson. Faire campagne pour la justice, Michalon
À propos de : Gabriel Entin, En quête de République. Une histoire de la communauté politique en Amérique hispanique, Presses universitaires de Rennes
