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.
Through his research into little-known aspects of twentieth-century French thought and authors sensitive to the diversity of modes of knowledge, Frédéric Fruteau de Laclos has issued a manifesto for empiricism and a rallying cry against ethnocentrism.
Quotas in India contribute to the emancipation of lower castes while producing perverse effects that are difficult to control. Rohini Somanathan questions the right balance between targeted positive discrimination policies and public policies with a universal vocation.
Secularisation is often presented as a Western model that was exported during decolonisation; but according to M. A. Meziane, it was in fact spread by colonialism itself as an instrument of domination.
Right to a healthy environment, rights of nature or of non-human animals: can environmental rights serve the cause of environmentalism? Legal expert Diane Roman analyses the pathways towards the jurisdictional enforcement of these new rights, and highlights the progress they have made, as well as their limitations.
About: Haud Guéguen et Laurent Jeanpierre, La perspective du possible. Comment penser ce qui peut nous arriver, et ce que nous pouvons faire, La Découverte
About: Olivier Boulnois, Généalogie de la liberté, Seuil
About: Pascal Sévérac, Puissance de l’enfance. Vygotski avec Spinoza, Vrin
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.
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.
Is there still room for hope at the White House?
Is it really the case, as is often alleged, that money decides everything about elections? As the US presidential election is looming, La Vie des idées/Books & Ideas and Public Books team up to examine the influence of money in today’s electoral democracies.
Kenzaburō Ōe, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a controversial figure in Japan. And rightly so, for there are a great many contradictions in both his fictional and theoretical work. He is a fierce opponent of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, and yet continues to celebrate the heroism of the soldier who finds glory through sacrifice.
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.
“Do we have the right to make bets on the future of mankind?” Forty-one years after being the first ecologist candidate in a presidential campaign and publishing his manifesto book, René Dumont’s intuitions and warnings have lost little of their relevance.
La répression qui a sévi sous Franco explique en grande partie la longévité de son régime. Les protestations furent cependant nombreuses, et les formes de résistance très variées.
Pour quelles raisons estime-t-on que nos sociétés sont plus libres, prospères ou démocratiques grâce à l’institution de la propriété privée – et non pas malgré elle ?
À partir d’une enquête collective, Christine Detrez propose de déconstruire le terme de “crush” et la manière dont ses sens sociaux éclairent les modalités de formation du couple et d’éducation sentimentale chez les jeunes de 12 à 25 ans.
À propos de : Gilles Havard, Les Natchez. Une histoire coloniale de la violence, Tallandier / Flammarion
A propos de : Jean Boutier, Sandro Landi et Jean-claude Waquet (dir.), Le temps des Italies. XIIe-XIXe siècle, Passés/Composés
À propos de : Sebastian Roché et François Rabaté, La police contre la rue, Grasset