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.
Summer is here; Books&Ideas is off on holiday. We will be back with new publications starting August 30. In the meantime, here is a selection of texts published over the past year.
How can we explain the variations between judicial decisions in criminal matters? Using the method of natural experiment, economist Arnaud Philippe sets out to identify the factors that influence decisions and determine criminal sanctions. At the risk of forgetting sociology?
Employees are the primary inventors, but they are often deprived of their rights by legal strategies that capture their expertise. In response, new forms of resistance are emerging, based on open access.
About: Alain Trannoy & Etienne Wasmer, Le grand retour de la terre dans les patrimoines, Odile Jacob
About: Hugues Draelants & Sonia Revaz, L’évidence des faits. La politique des preuves en éducation, Puf
About: Yannick Fer, Sociologie du pentecôtisme, Karthala
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.
Rorty made conversation a philosophical genre in its own right, which led him to reject any distinctions he considered futile: between analytic and continental philosophy, between the Enlightenment and postmodernity, between philosophy and literature.
In 1947, Princess Elizabeth promised to serve ‘the great imperial family’, as part of the attempt to remake post-war Britain as a global power. The British Empire collapsed; but this language of service and Commonwealth allowed the Queen to take up the postcolonial concerns of the 21st century.
How do images shape our worldview ? What do their study bring to our understanding of society ? Through interviews, essays and reviews this dossier shows how the close study of still or moving images has become central to the social sciences. From anthropology to history or literature, taking into account the overwhelming presence of visual representation yields unexpected and original information about human, social and political relationships.
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 the social construction of racial identities, and the history of domination.
Protectionism, a solution? Really? The economic crisis may not have turned the tide against liberalization, but we certainly cannot look at protectionism the same as we used to.
Ronald Dworkin’s innovative and politically ambitious work has become essential reading in political and legal theory. Taking issue with classical political liberalism, he argues that liberty and equality are not mutually exclusive, and are indeed inseparable. And against traditional interpretations of law, he argues that law must be understood by comparing it to a collective novel, a mixture of creativity and interpretation.
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’.
By asserting that structuralism is a fruitful approach to kinship relations or the difference between the sexes, Françoise Héritier radically renewed anthropological methodology. Her life’s work has also shown us that scientific commitment goes hand-in-hand with societal involvement.
Alors que la multiplication des tensions autour de l’eau semble inévitable, Simon Porcher propose une série de mesures pour adapter notre cadre économique et législatif.
Amer savoir, celui qu’on tire du voyage ! Mais au fait, pourquoi voyager ? Et peut-on habiter le monde tout en le parcourant ?
Après 1945, l’utilisation géopolitique du sport trouve sa place dans les nouvelles alliances de la guerre froide. L’idéologie et la diplomatie se glissent alors dans tous les recoins de l’activité sportive.
À propos de : Josiane Boutet, Marcel Cohen, linguiste engagé dans son siècle (1884-1974), éditions Lambert-Lucas
À propos de : David Robinson, Voices in the code. A story about people, their values, and the algorithm they made,
À propos de : Geneviève Pruvost, Quotidien politique. Féminisme, écologie, subsistance, La Découverte