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.
Étienne Anheim and Paul Pasquali examine a key moment in interdisciplinary dialogue: Pierre Bourdieu’s translation and editing of the art historian Erwin Panofsky.
Bernard Manin sees Montesquieu as a political philosopher who was attentive to the plurality of political forms and the way that such pluralism can, in moderate regimes, prevent the abuse of power. This is why it is important, he explains, to keep reading this Enlightenment philosopher.
The intensive use of carbon energies has brought prosperity, particularly since 1945, along with relatively peaceful international relations. Decarbonation makes it necessary, according to Pierre Charbonnier, to invent a new form of geopolitics.
About: Geneviève Verdo, Des peuples en mal d’union. Aux origines de l’Argentine, Flammarion
About: Denis Crouzet, Paris criminel. 1572, Les Belles Lettres
About: Anne-Marie Cheny, Le cercle des byzantinistes. Comment bibliothécaires, savants et voyageurs inventèrent Byzance (XVIe-XIXe siècle), Les Belles Lettres
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.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection questions the social construction of racial identities, and the history of domination.
The media industry has undergone dramatic changes in its technologies and business models. To help us understand the effects of these changes on democracy, Books and Ideas takes the discussion away from simplistic dichotomies between the Internet and the so-called “traditional” press.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection focuses on China today, its uses of digital technologies to govern, and the political theories developed by its intellectuals.
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.
André Gorz’s multiform thought is entirely centred on liberation: from work, which prevents individuals from thriving; from consumption, which grows ever higher; and from the social system, which reduces individuals to mere pawns in a “megamachine”.
Leading 19th century statesman, political economist, architect of the 1860 commercial treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and campaigner for peace between European nations, Michel Chevalier had also been a dominant voice in the Romantic socialism of Saint-Simonianism: the eclectic nature of his thought would lend itself to a particular vision of Europe, forerunner of today’s European Union.
La victoire électorale au Pérou de Keiko Fujimori, la fille de l’ancien autocrate des années 1990, doit s’apprécier au regard d’une modification institutionnelle : le retour du bicamérisme.
Comment le savoir occidental a-t-il été absorbé et réinterprété par les sociétés extra-occidentales ? L’ouvrage érudit de T. Brisson remet en cause l’image d’un hégémonisme sans nuance.
La plupart des préjugés antisémites existent toujours, sous une forme actualisée, sans que leur histoire soit bien connue : ces obsessions, fantasmes et schémas de pensée restent profondément sédimentés dans nos sociétés.
À propos de : Jawad Daheur et Iva Lučić, dir., Habsburg Natures : Imperial Governance & Environment in Central Europe, 1850-1918, Berghahn
À propos de : Louise Tassin, Comme on les enferme. Dans les centres de rétention, de Paris à Lampedusa, La Découverte
À propos de : Sébastien Fontenelle, Tolkien contre les machines. Écologie et antifascisme en Terre du Milieu, Lux éditeur
