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.
The intensive use of carbon energies has brought prosperity, particularly since 1945, along with relatively peaceful international relations. Decarbonation makes it necessary, according to Pierre Charbonnier, to invent a new form of geopolitics.
Could Argentina, instead of being the modern country we know, have developed into fourteen independent states engaged in never-ending competition? From the “disunited province” of Rio de la Plata to the affirmation of a single nation-state, a new book describes a quest for unity that lasted five decades. Reviewed: Geneviève Verdo, Des peuples en mal d’union. Aux origines de l’Argentine (Peoples without unity: The origins of Argentina) Paris Flammarion, 2025.
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.
About: Anne-Marie Cheny, Le cercle des byzantinistes. Comment bibliothécaires, savants et voyageurs inventèrent Byzance (XVIe-XIXe siècle), Les Belles Lettres
About: Nicolas Badalassi, La France, la guerre froide et la Méditerranée. Des accords d’Évian à la Perestroïka, Presses universitaires de Rennes
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
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.
Over the past few months, Books and Ideas has been running a series of interviews with leading contemporary scholars, who took the time to discuss their particular topics of research with us. For the Christmas season, we have put together a selection of seven discussions with intellectuals across the humanities and sciences: sociology, history, comparative literature, neuro-biology, anthropology and political science.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is our weekly selection of reviews published over the past year.
Leading 19th century statesman, political economist, architect of the 1860 commercial treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and campaigner for peace between European nations, Michel Chevalier had also been a dominant voice in the Romantic socialism of Saint-Simonianism: the eclectic nature of his thought would lend itself to a particular vision of Europe, forerunner of today’s European Union.
Though poorly known in France, the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas is nonetheless essential for understanding the elementary forms of social organization and daily life. By shedding light on her academic career and personal life, this portrait rehabilitates the thought of a major intellectual.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
Historien, citoyen, résistant : la figure de Marc Bloch invite à penser le rôle public des sciences sociales. À l’occasion de sa panthéonisation, Patrick Boucheron éclaire une vie consacrée à la recherche historique au service de la société, où la rigueur érudite se confond avec l’exigence de liberté.
Qui la nation choisit-elle d’honorer, et selon quelles modalités ? Des révolutionnaires aux héros ordinaires, deux siècles de panthéonisations révèlent les usages politiques de la mémoire, les conflits idéologiques et les valeurs que les pouvoirs successifs ont entendu consacrer.
Ni saint laïque ni héros national : l’œuvre historienne comme les relations personnelles de Marc Bloch révèlent un homme aux multiples facettes et aux engagements constants. Un portrait total, au-delà de l’image figée des cérémonies républicaines.
Rodrigo Turin et Walter Francisco Figueiredo Lowande (dir.), Antropoceno. Perspectivas historiográficas, Rio de Janeiro, Nau Editora
À propos de : Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos, Bruno Latour et l’anthropologie des modernes. Contre-enquête, Vrin
À propos de : Lou Bossis, Trans et militant.e.s. Se forger par la lutte dans les années 1970 et 1980 en France, Presses Universitaires de Rennes
