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.
In this virtual roundtable published in partnership with Public Books, six contributors from France, Russia and the US address the issue of contemporary Russia and its often tense relations with the West.
During the Christmas season, Books and Ideas offers a selection of reviews and essays that tackle the subject of cities and the issues they raise as complex centers of urban life: how could we live better in them? How to reduce the inequalities they create? Can they become more sustainable? The following texts cast a new light on all of these questions.
In our second winter selection of reviews and essays, Books & Ideas takes a look back at a few important articles published over the last year on the current developments and trends affecting public spaces for expression and debate : from the traditional media to the world wide web, these different spaces are all under pressure from ongoing changes. Rules and practices are evolving, as the traditional public space is being radically enlarged.
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.
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’.
Umberto Eco is best known to the general public for his novels and critical works in which he developed his theory of reception. Who realizes, however, that this aspect of his work is only one part of a general semiology organized around a philosophy of signs?
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
