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.
With its distinct natural resources, its openness to the outside world, and the hierarchical society it fostered, the period before the Viking era counts among the most poorly known periods in Scandinavian history. It must be reinterpreted from the standpoint of a broader history of the first millennium CE.
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.
Historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz provides the first genealogical study of the concept of energy transition. In the face of discourses that keep postponing “the transition” to a later date, Fressoz takes up the unprecedented political challenge of a complete phase-out of fossil fuels.
The Vatican’s attitude during the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jews has been at the heart of numerous debates and controversies. Nina Valbousquet analyses the ambivalent position of the papacy during the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) and provides a sensitive history of the Holocaust through the archives.
About: Celia Izoard, La ruée minière au XXIe siècle, Seuil
About: Michel Bourdeau, La fin de l’utopie libérale. Introduction critique à la pensée de Friedrich Hayek, Hermann
About: Montassir Sakhi, La révolution et le djihad. Syrie, France, Belgique, La Découverte
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.
Food is now a conspicuous topic, from culinary blogs to magazines, diet books, TV shows and contests. Yet unbeknownst to many, it often holds an underground, clandestine place in some of social science’s major works. This dossier assesses the current importance of such scholarly endeavors, known as “food studies” in the United States.
In our second winter selection of reviews and essays, Books & Ideas takes a look back at a few important articles published over the last year on the current developments and trends affecting public spaces for expression and debate : from the traditional media to the world wide web, these different spaces are all under pressure from ongoing changes. Rules and practices are evolving, as the traditional public space is being radically enlarged.
Over the past few months, Books and Ideas has been running a series of interviews with leading contemporary scholars, who took the time to discuss their particular topics of research with us. For the Christmas season, we have put together a selection of seven discussions with intellectuals across the humanities and sciences: sociology, history, comparative literature, neuro-biology, anthropology and political science.
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.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
“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.
Jugé opaque, bureaucratique et peu fiable, le travail d’évaluation de l’enseignement supérieur mené par l’HCERES suscite régulièrement critiques et mobilisations des universitaires. Clémentine Gozlan revient sur les origines et le fonctionnement de cette bureaucratie qui incarne l’entrée de l’Université dans l’ère du New Public management.
Alors que l’année 2025 marque les 50 ans de la mort d’Hannah Arendt, ce nouvel ouvrage qui lui est consacré offre une perspective inédite sur une période méconnue et pourtant fondamentale dans la vie et l’œuvre de la philosophe.
Marx a mal lu Proudhon : il lui reproche d’avoir négligé les rapports de production, alors que l’anarchiste français s’intéresse à l’assujettissement politique qu’amène selon lui nécessairement la propriété privée.
À propos de : Peter Frankopan, Les Métamorphoses de la terre. L’humanité et la nature, une nouvelle histoire du monde, Tallandier
À propos de : Félix Tréguer, Technopolice. La surveillance policière à l’ère de l’intelligence artificielle, Divergences
À propos de : Marie Houllemare, Justices d’empire. La répression dans les colonies françaises au XVIIIe siècle, Puf
