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.
International Criminal Court judges process hundreds of pieces of evidence before rendering their verdict. Artwork-tools cut through the maze of data, providing an essential artistic and visual support for the administration of justice.
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.
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 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.
About: Bruno Dumézil, L’Empire mérovingien, Ve-VIIIe siècle, Passés composés
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
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.
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 articles published over the last year.
The current world-wide demand for “real” democracy as embodied in the Indignados (15-M) movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement reiterates long-lasting frustrations as regards representative government and the incompleteness of democratic experiences throughout the world. This dossier gathers interviews and essays by renowned scholars on the conception of democracy as an on-going experience and not as a finished model.
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.
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.
Thanks to his work on Greco-Roman antiquity, his intellectual curiosity, his pronounced taste for interdisciplinarity, his sense of humor, and the freedom that informs all his research, Paul Veyne is a twentieth-century historian whose work cannot be avoided. A loose cannon at the heart of the academic establishment, a deep thinker and a dilettante, Veyne invites us, through his work, to a festival of thought.
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.
En Allemagne, le conflit israélo-palestinien divise notamment les sympathisants et militants de la gauche radicale. Parmi eux, le courant « anti-allemand » se distingue par son soutien inconditionnel à l’État d’Israël et une critique de l’anti-impérialisme majoritaire à gauche.
En suivant une méthode généalogique, Philip Pettit montre que la fonction de l’État est d’assurer la sécurité des citoyens, en établissant leurs droits et obligations, et en les protégeant contre les dangers internes et externes.
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.
À propos de : Isabelle Coutant, Yvon Atonga, Petit frère. Comprendre les destinées familiales, Seuil
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
