Books & ideas

How Austerity is Worsening Coronavirus

Matthew Soener — 2020-06-04T07:00:00Z

The Covid-19 virus follows years of austerity politics in Europe and this market-driven ideology is already shaping discussions of how we should handle it. This article examines the way these decisions have affected our ability to respond to the current epidemic.

A Flu that Left a Hundred Million Dead

Étienne Forestier-Peyrat — 2020-05-28T07:00:00Z

Caught between the great epidemics of the past and the horrors of the world war, the 1918-1919 flu has long struggled to be recognized as a major health disaster. Reactions to the current epidemic testify to the persistence of denial in the face of troubling outbreaks of disease.

Tracing Apps to Fight Covid-19

Marine Al Dahdah & Mohammad Javed Alam — 2020-05-18T07:00:00Z

Tracing apps to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have been implemented in various Asian countries, and Europe is also considering their use. But is the data privacy risk worth taking? This essay proposes an overview of such technologies and questions their efficiency.

Can Covid-19 Crisis Change Italian Politics?

Alessandro Mulieri — 2020-04-27T07:21:24Z

Since Italy has been a laboratory of recent global political developments, it is important to keep a close eye on how anti-elite and souverainist tendencies fare in the Coronavirus crisis that has hit Italy hard and how party lines have been reshuffled in the current reconciliation with technocracy.