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.
In the tradition of Marcel Mauss, Pierre Lemonnier examines the male initiation rites of the Baruya of New Guinea not in terms of the signifier that can be attached to them, but rather the action on matter that they make possible.
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.
Lawyer, feminist activist and a prominent figure of the Syrian opposition, Dima Moussa advocates for an inclusive political transition, the establishment of genuine democratic institutions, and the necessity of a national debate open to all components of Syrian society.
In ancient times, mythological and historical criminals were not always inhuman. They show us that there is nothing universal about our self-evident truths, particularly when they concern such fundamental concepts as good and evil.
While public authorities currently seem to prefer to use incentives rather than constraints to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, economists are developing increasingly effective tools to measure the effectiveness of these policies.
About: Laurent Warlouzet, Europe contre Europe. Entre liberté, solidarité et puissance depuis 1945, CNRS Éditions
About: Francis Wolff, Le temps du monde, Fayard
About: Maxence Brischoux, Géopolitique des mers, Puf
Michel Crozier’s work was shaped by the conviction that organizational phenomena create society. He helped pioneer the tools for analyzing groups established to carry out a common project according to a specific system of action and rules of the game.
The EU aims for net climate neutrality by 2050, utilizing the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) as its main tool. But the climate crisis demands more than market mechanisms. It requires comprehensive planning and legal frameworks that prioritize public over private interests.
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.
How do images respond to political events and how do they shape them ? What is the political power of images ? Should images of violence be shown in the media ? Through its winter selection, Books&Ideas offers to rediscover a group of four essays and reviews, all published in 2015, which have tackled these questions through the prism of history, philosophy, aesthetics and political sciences.
As protests against racism break out all over the world following the murder of George Floyd, Books & Ideas gathers a selection of texts examining the history of these multifaceted discriminations and of the struggles for racial justice.
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 relationship between gender and politics.
Richard Hoggart (1918-2014), a poor child who went onto become a university professor, was the epitome of a successful scholarship student. The trajectory of this “exemplary counter-example” sheds light on the mechanisms of social reproduction when they prove inoperative and the distance that can be traveled from one’s native milieu.
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.
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.
Les outils d’évaluation de la douleur de l’enfant semblent parfois conduire à la sous-estimer. Quels sont les mécanismes à l’œuvre dans cette sous-estimation ? Que révèlent-ils de notre rapport à l’enfant ?
Entre le XVIe et le XVIIIe siècle, alors que le pouvoir monarchique s’affirme sur le territoire français, les cours d’eau du Bassin parisien restent l’objet de négociations entre différents acteurs contraints de se coordonner.
Aux services publics impropres à répondre aux défis démocratiques actuels par leur dimension verticale, Thomas Perroud oppose, dans une perspective juridique ouverte aux sciences sociales, le potentiel critique des communs.
À propos de : Bernard Manin, Montesquieu, Hermann
À propos de Malika Zeghal, The Making of the Modern Muslim State. Islam and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa, Princeton, Princeton University Press
À propos de : Guillaume Durieux, Faut-il en finir avec l’école ? Autonomie & justice scolaire, Éditions Eliott
