https://booksandideas.net// 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. en SPIP - www.spip.net https://booksandideas.net/local/cache-vignettes/L144xH68/siteon0-04014.png?1675949311 https://booksandideas.net// 68 144 https://booksandideas.net/The-Origins-of-Environmental-History https://booksandideas.net/The-Origins-of-Environmental-History 2026-04-28T07:03:34Z text/html en Kevin Bouillot History environment nature anthropology science Cairn.info symbole <p>Our understanding of nature differs from that of the Greeks and Romans. From the “month of the ox” to “the forest goddess,” the ancients never thought to separate humans from the flora and fauna around them.</p> https://booksandideas.net/A-World-of-Waste https://booksandideas.net/A-World-of-Waste 2026-03-31T08:00:00Z text/html en Jean-Philippe Pierron Philosophy environment nature technics Cairn.info <p>We would rather not see or even think about our waste, but it has a lot to tell us about our habits, our lives, and more importantly, about what we are doing to our world today.</p> https://booksandideas.net/The-Depletion-of-Life-on-Earth https://booksandideas.net/The-Depletion-of-Life-on-Earth 2025-11-13T08:30:00Z text/html en Esteban Arcos Philosophy nature environmentalism living exploitation Cairn.info <p>The “ardor of pillagers” refers to the momentum driving the depletion of life, which is outlined by Hicham-Stéphane Afeissa in his new book, drawing on the entire field of ecological thought.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Ecologists-Let-s-Get-to-Work https://booksandideas.net/Ecologists-Let-s-Get-to-Work 2025-09-30T12:39:59Z text/html en Bertrand Vaillant Philosophy nature labour environmentalism Marxism exploitation animals Cairn.info <p>How can we reconcile the working classes with ecology? By reminding ecologists of the need to address together production and consumption. Doing so would lead to the constitution of “biocommunism,” the fundamental concepts of which are outlined by Paul Guillibert.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Marx-and-the-history-of-nature https://booksandideas.net/Marx-and-the-history-of-nature 2025-06-05T07:00:00Z text/html en Camille Chamois Philosophy nature environmentalism living Marx Cairn.info <p>According to Frédéric Monferrand, Marx considers capitalism as a vast effort to put nature to work. This includes human bodies, as well as non-human environments. Monferrand outlines a “historical naturalism,” demonstrating its political and ecological relevance.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Can-capitalism-go-green https://booksandideas.net/Can-capitalism-go-green 2024-06-11T06:00:00Z text/html en Guillaume Delafosse Economy nature environmentalism economic growth Cairn.info <p>Can one save the planet and still be a capitalist? For Hélène Tordjman, the answer is “no.” To save nature, capitalism must be abandoned. Not an easy task!</p> https://booksandideas.net/A-Tribunal-for-the-Planet https://booksandideas.net/A-Tribunal-for-the-Planet 2024-04-25T07:18:00Z text/html en Pierre Auriel International nature law Cairn.info <p>Right to a healthy environment, rights of nature or of non-human animals: can environmental rights serve the cause of environmentalism? Legal expert Diane Roman analyses the pathways towards the jurisdictional enforcement of these new rights, and highlights the progress they have made, as well as their limitations.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Six-Centuries-of-Climate-Debate https://booksandideas.net/Six-Centuries-of-Climate-Debate 2023-11-02T09:00:00Z text/html en Alexis Vrignon History culture nature climate change Cairn.info <p>From the very beginning of the modern era, Western societies have been debating over and worrying about the climate, its evolution and the responsibility of humans. On this topic, as on many others, the idea of a long prevailing great division between nature and culture is undermined.</p> https://booksandideas.net/The-Wolves-Entered-Paris https://booksandideas.net/The-Wolves-Entered-Paris 2023-05-18T07:30:00Z text/html en Matthieu Calame Society nature city animals Cairn.info <p>Hundreds of species have adapted to modern conurbations. What drives animals to go and live in the city? Beyond the accelerated degradation of nature, we need to rethink the very notion of wildness, and invent an “ethics of asymmetrical relations”.</p> https://booksandideas.net/Are-Plants-Animals-Like-Any-Other https://booksandideas.net/Are-Plants-Animals-Like-Any-Other 2021-04-05T07:00:00Z text/html en Enrique Utria Philosophy nature ethics Institut français animals veganism <p>Through a phenomenology of plant life, the philosopher Florence Burgat reminds us that plants are defined above all by what they do not have: Lacking an intentional consciousness or a lived world, how could they lead the secret life that certain popular books ascribe to them?</p>