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.
Amid the never-ending crisis of the welfare state and the waning of the principle of solidarity, Sacha Lévy-Bruhl proposes a new interpretation. Starting from the idea of collective responsibility, he pursues an important goal: rethinking social protection in the twenty-first century.
What are the emancipatory prospects for women excluded from salaried work? By analyzing working-class Maghrebin women’s attitudes towards work, family, and heterosexuality, Fatma Çingi Kocadost shows the limits of individual emancipation through work.
Black women—whether from the Caribbean, Africa, or of African descent—have conceptualized and embodied French citizenship. Their often hidden trajectories and struggles illustrate an alternative history of the nation, shaped by colonialism, when seen through the lenses of race, class, and gender.
About: Alexandra Féret, Abdiquer la souveraineté. Politique et théologie chez Simone Weil, Vrin
About: Vanina Mozziconacci, Apprendre à philosopher en féministe, La Dispute
About: Étienne Anheim et Paul Pasquali, Bourdieu et Panofsky. Essai d’archéologie intellectuelle, Les Éditions de Minuit
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.
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 to renew the currently dwindling support for democratic governance? To the minds of theorists and historians, whether advocating going back to classical political traditions like Republicanism or drawing lots, or experimenting new approaches, increased political participation may be the best path to follow.
During the Christmas season, Books and Ideas offers a selection of reviews and essays that tackle the subject of cities and the issues they raise as complex centers of urban life: how could we live better in them? How to reduce the inequalities they create? Can they become more sustainable? The following texts cast a new light on all of these questions.
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.
Now a well-known Chinese lawyer of the democratic dissidence in China, Zhang Sizhi was once a young nationalist, a high-ranking official in the court of Beijing and a victim of anti-rightist repression. In his memoirs, he provides a detailed and fascinating description of the profession and China in the second half of the 20th century.
Among the recipients of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was Elinor Ostrom, for her analysis of economic governance, especially in relation to the commons. While this choice took many in the profession by surprise, her life-long quest for an understanding of successful common property resource management holds important lessons for our future.
Avant de déterminer le « juste prix » d’un risque, une assurance doit déterminer le collectif au sein duquel les pertes seront partagées. Ce texte revient sur l’histoire de cette construction, des sociétés de secours mutuels aux techniques contemporaines de classification.
En comparant Federer aux plus grands peintres de la Renaissance, F. Lacouture entreprend de montrer ce que ce champion a de plus que les autres : une valeur esthétique irréductible à la performance. Mais peut-on considérer un sportif comme un artiste ?
Le sommeil a changé depuis la révolution industrielle : les contraintes de tous ordres, liés aux impératifs de production, lui nuisent fortement. Notre capacité physiologique d’adaptation, pour grande qu’elle soit, reste cependant limitée.
À propos de : Jérôme Baschet, Laurent Jeanpierre, Mondes postcapitalistes, La Découverte
A propos de : Clément Thibaud, 1815 : Fin de l’âge des révolutions ?, Puf
À propos de : Olivier Ritz, Une histoire littéraire de la Révolution française, Gallimard
