Books & ideas

The Plastic Reality of Capitalism

Fabien Eloire — 2024-03-14T08:04:00Z

Two hundred years after its emergence in the West, capitalism has become a culture in the broad sense, a way of life, and an ideology. It permeates all spheres of society, including work and politics, and insinuates itself in children through education and the family.

A French Touch in the Sociology of Wealth

Nicolas Duvoux — 2021-03-29T07:00:00Z

A French qualitative strand of research opens new paths to understanding wealth accumulation in the post-Piketty era and renews our vision of elite groups and beyond.

The Rising Invisible Majority

Alessandro Arrigoni & Emanuele Ferragina — 2021-03-01T08:00:00Z

A period of political and economic turmoil calls for a new analytical framework to be developed. Drawing upon the tools of social science and fiction, the “Rising Invisible Majority” project examines how the shifts of a long-term political economy rendered a large share of its population ‘invisible'.

Rethinking Class

Nicolas Duvoux — 2020-10-05T07:00:00Z

The employment structure has changed since the 1970's. For Daniel Oesch, this means we need new models to describe today's labour markets and new class schemes to move beyond industrial-based categories. We also need to understand the political consequences of the collapse of the industrial working class in Europe.

Where Does the Value of Art Begin? (Part One)

Alvaro Santana Acuña — 2016-05-02T07:30:00Z

Where does the value of contemporary art begin in a globalized art market? Taking as a point of departure the comparison between influential sociological studies exploring prices and markets, this two-part essay examines the profound changes that the contemporary art market has experienced before, during and after the Great Recession.

The Market in Early Modern Europe

Laurence Fontaine — 2016-01-22T08:00:00Z

In pre-industrial Europe, in which the economy of specificity and the habit of exchanging gifts prevailed, putting the buying process under the scrutiny of the community, through auctions or the market place, was an essential step in reducing the inherent uncertainty of fixing prices through face to face encounters.

Money & Value

Angèle Christin & Agnès Gramain & Florence Weber — 2016-01-18T08:00:00Z

Twenty years after the publication of Viviana Zelizer's “The Social Meaning of Money”, this special issue brings together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds to examine the genesis of the book, its impact in shaping the analysis of economic value, and its enduring intellectual influence on both sides of the Atlantic.

Twenty Years After The Social Meaning of Money

2016-01-18T08:00:00Z

The first part of this special issue on Money & Value, published as a series on Books&Ideas, offers several perspectives on the genesis of Viviana A. Zelizer's groundbreaking book, The Social Meaning of Money, the reactions it provoked, and its enduring influence on both sides of the Atlantic.

Discussing Karl Polanyi, Understanding the Current Crisis

Gianfranco Poggi — 2014-12-11T10:32:00Z

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.

Is a History of Trust Possible?

Nicolas Delalande — 2011-04-13T07:27:00Z

How can historians measure and analyse the fluctuations of trust and civic feeling? In spite of the remarkable success enjoyed by Yann Algan and Pierre Cahuc's La société de défiance, the book's argument is based on a very fragile opposition between the Third Republic, seen as the golden age of trust, and bureaucratic state intervention established at the end of the Second World War. In this article, Nicolas Delalande shows how slight and ideologically biased the authors' historical arguments are.