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 love for newness did not begin with modern consumer society. It has long been capitalism’s primary engine and has been central to how it imagines the market. At present, its environmental impact is disastrous.
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.
Can morality be grounded in the sense of sympathy? According to Adam Smith, sympathy with the sentiments of others is precisely what allows for self-command, a cardinal virtue that enables us to act from a sense of duty.
An unparalleled demographic catastrophe, the Black Death disrupted the economic, social, and cultural balance of medieval Europe in the 14th century. Long considered a major turning point, it now appears as an indicator of the structures, limitations, and resilience of medieval societies.
About: Richard Schittly, Les Oubliés d’Action directe. De l’ultra-gauche au terrorisme, La Manufacture des livres
About: Pascal Engel, Foucault et les normes du savoir, Eliott éditions
About: Maria Cecilia d’Ercole, Silvia d’Intino, Florence Gherchanoc (dir.), Natura. Approches anciennes, enjeux contemporains, Classiques Garnier
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.
At a time when Europe is equated with sovereign debt and political powerlessness, one should not forget that the foundations for a European citizenship have already been laid. Its potential for democracy needs to be interrogated, as do the cultural resources that it can rely on.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection questions our global consumerism, looks back in its history and analyses its legal framework.
A selection of five essays and reviews recently published in Books&Ideas discusses the legacy and renewal of social class studies in France, Great-Britain and India.
How do scientific discoveries and progress come about? Against an idealist and triumphalist conception of the history of science, Simon Schaffer’s oeuvre examines science in the making, in close proximity to its practices and actors. Far from diminishing its prestige, this approach restores science to the central place it occupied in Old Regime societies.
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.
Fred Block & Margaret Somers, two key members of an international network of scholars appealing to Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece of 1944, forcefully argue that it constitutes a critical resource for understanding not only the nature and origins of the market economy but also its recurrent crises, including the current one.
En Allemagne, un moteur de recherche permet d’explorer les registres du Parti nazi. Au-delà des secrets de famille, cette initiative ravive des débats. Quelle différence entre la connaissance et la mémoire ? Que faire du nazisme à l’heure où l’extrême droite s’efforce de le réhabiliter ?
À travers la critique du « primat ontologique du présent », Christophe Bouton entend renouveler la métaphysique du temps en restituant au passé, au présent et au futur leur égalité et leur interdépendance.
Le multilatéralisme est devenu la cible de nombreux leaders populistes visant à en saper les fondements. Quelle est la spécificité de ces attaques populistes et les institutions de la gouvernance mondiale sont-elles en mesure d’y résister ?
À propos de : Patrick Boucheron, Peste Noire, Seuil
À propos de : Thibaut Giraud, La Parole aux machines. Philosophie des grands modèles de langage, Éditions Grasset
À propos de : Anne-Lyse Chabert et Gabrielle Halpern, Nos paroles empêchées, L’aube
