Books & ideas

A micro-history of the Holy City

Myriam Ababsa — 2024-12-10T09:17:00Z

The plaza in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem was the scene of intense conflict between Jews and Muslims in the twentieth century. Paying unique attention to the faintest traces, historian Vincent Lemire traces the successive episodes of violence and destruction that unfolded at the foot of the wall.

Digging Up Cataclysms

Boris Valentin — 2024-11-14T07:32:01Z

A new archaeology has emerged whose contributions to our understanding of twentieth-century mass violence oscillate between history and memory. A specialist in the field provides an impressive overview that sounds very much like a plea.

Jewish Archives, French History

Pierre Birnbaum — 2024-10-10T07:56:26Z

Have France's Jews been excluded from the great national narrative? The fact is, their archives are as rich as they are significant, bearing witness to a very long history. Moreover, they provide a basis for writing the “external” as well as the “internal” history of Jewish communities.

The History and Future of Assyriology

Catherine Valenti — 2024-05-14T05:00:00Z

A recent book traces the rich history of Assyriology, from pioneers such as Oppert and Grotefend, through the major institutions that have contributed to its development, to today's research projects. This is a portrait of a surprisingly contemporary science.

The Ancestor Seeker

Thomas Grillot — 2016-05-06T07:00:00Z

Michel Brunet, a paleontologist and paleoanthropologist at the Collège de France and the discoverer of the oldest pre-human remains yet to be found, describes to Books & Ideas the obsessive quest for the human family's ancestors and the circumstances in which his field, situated at the crossroads between the natural and human sciences, is practiced.