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.
On April 25, 1974, a coup d’état led by young officers overthrew a nearly fifty-year old dictatorship in Portugal, inaugurating a revolutionary era. The historian Victor Pereira describes the origins and repercussions of this event—as well as its twists and turns, achievements, and doubts.
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.
How can we move beyond abstract architecture, where buildings are constructed without their audiences? Peter Ferretto’s method is based on observation, engagement, and the osmosis between teaching, practice, research, and social impact.
The life and work of Antonio Gramsci are inseparable. To grasp the coherence and theoretical depth of the Prison Notebooks, one must read them in the context in which they were written.
The Frankish kingdom that emerged between the sixth and eighth centuries promoted political and religious diversity, before the Carolingians brought this pragmatism to an end. Did an empire exist in Europe between Rome and Charlemagne?
About: Jean Boutier, Sandro Landi et Jean-claude Waquet (dir.), Le temps des Italies. XIIe-XIXe siècle, Passés/Composés
About: Régine Le Jan, Amis ou ennemis ? Émotions, relations, identités au Moyen Âge, Seuil
About: Alexis Fontbonne, Introduction à la sociologie médiévale, CNRS Éditions
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.
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.
Five leading scholars of Big Tech studies share their views on the hopes and dangers of the on-going Digital Revolution. Their answers reveal the pressing need for more political, social and economic theorizing of these dynamics.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will resume its publication schedule on August 26. In the meantime, we present to you a weekly selection of essays and reviews published over the past year.
The June protests which shook Brazil in 2013 stunned the world. This dossier, published by Books&Ideas, discusses the main issues at the core of these protests, analyzing them in the light of previous mobilizations and explaining why they are essential to the understanding of contemporary Brazil.
For more than thirty years, Joan Scott has been informing and transforming both our history and the way we write history, while encouraging us to question categories and change our modes of thinking. From class struggle to sex differentiation, sexual emancipation and race, she proposes a critical analysis of Republican rhetoric to undermine naturalized forms of inequality.
Ronald Coase (1910-2013), the 1991 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is famous for his oft-quoted and just as often misunderstood “theorem.” His seminal works on transaction costs, property rights, and regulation continue to stimulate a rich reflection in economics and beyond.
In an innovative study that returns Albert Camus’ early works to their rightful place in the canon, Laurent Bove suggests we should view Camus as a philosopher of immanence and of acquiescence to the joy of the world. This reading is enlightening as far as Camus’ thoughts on history are concerned, but tends to gloss over the ruptures that run though his work, which is driven with multiple tensions.
Le printemps tunisien a fait naître en 2010 de grands espoirs. Mais force est de constater qu’il n’en reste rien aujourd’hui : le régime politique en place n’a cessé de devenir de plus en plus autoritaire, allant même jusqu’à désigner des boucs émissaires.
Contre la tendance des experts à vouloir garder le contrôle exclusif du développement technologique – au nom de l’incompétence du grand public –, Adeline Barbin suggère de confier davantage de pouvoir aux citoyens, afin que les techniques et les sciences soient conformes aux valeurs démocratiques.
Grandir dans la même fratrie ne garantit pas toujours des trajectoires convergentes comme le rappellent celles des frères Atonga.
À propos de : Naïma Ghermani, Le Droit des exilés. Généalogie du droit d’asile au XVIIe siècle, Puf
À propos de : Wolfgang Asholt, Das lange Leben der Avantgarde. Eine Theorie-Geschichte, Wallstein
À propos de : Arnaud Pierrel, Ingénieurs mais apprentis. ; Sophie Orange, Devenir technicien supérieur, le plafonnement des aspirations, Classiques Garnier
