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.
We need to rebuild universalism, not as an overarching model to be applied to all regions of the world, but on the basis of their own singularity—laterally, not from above.
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.
By scapegoating international organisations, Trump’s attacks are undermining multilateralism and the liberal order that emerged in 1945. This American disengagement is reopening the debate on a possible alternative leadership role for the EU.
The mass slaughters of dogs carried out in Mexico and Europe in the 19th century seem to have been a rehearsal for the human holocausts of the 20th century.
This fascinating political sociology study looks at the lifestyles and subjective perceptions of average National Rally voters in the South of France. It sheds light on the racist motivations behind people’s support for the party.
About: Jérémy Guedj, Les Juifs français et le nazisme, 1933-1939, Puf
About: Émilie Hache, De la génération. Enquête sur sa disparition et son remplacement par la production (On Generation: A Study of its Disappearance and Replacement by Production), Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond
About: Florence Hulak, L’histoire libérale de la modernité. Race, nation, classe, Puf
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.
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.
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 ways to shift our intellectual categories.
Disasters and the tragedies that they entail accumulate, along with human and social science research trying to grasp the significance of their repetition. The aim of the dossier launched today by Books & Ideas is to comprehend the nature of these studies.
How can we define democracy today? What role does or should the people play in the democratic process ? Through its summer selection, Books&Ideas offers to rediscover a group of four interviews and reviews, published in 2015 and 2016, which have tackled these questions through the prism of history, philosophy and political sciences.
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.
Fred Block & Margaret Somers, two key members of an international network of scholars appealing to Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece of 1944, forcefully argue that it constitutes a critical resource for understanding not only the nature and origins of the market economy but also its recurrent crises, including the current one.
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.
Les découvertes de la biologie contemporaine donnent un contenu empirique à l’idée bergsonienne selon laquelle les animaux insèrent de l’indétermination dans le monde. Bergson apparaît dès lors comme le complément philosophique nécessaire aux avancées de l’éthologie et de la biologie de l’évolution.
Face à la crise persistante de l’État social et devant l’essoufflement du principe de solidarité, Sacha Lévy-Bruhl en propose une nouvelle lecture. Portée par l’idée de responsabilité collective, elle poursuit un objectif majeur : repenser les protections sociales pour le XXIe siècle.
Restituer des œuvres pour réparer l’histoire ? Des pillages coloniaux aux musées contemporains, deux historiennes de l’art montrent la multiplicité des logiques à l’œuvre derrière chaque restitution.
À propos de : Émilien Sermier, Diamétralement modernes. Poètes francophones d’Amérique latine, Les Impressions nouvelles
À propos de : Silyane Larcher et Félix Germain (dir.), Marianne est aussi noire. Luttes occultées pour l’égalité, Seuil
À propos de : Pierre Charbonnier, Vers l’écologie de guerre, La Découverte
