Books & ideas

Old Comrades

Christian Baudelot — 2025-10-09T07:30:00Z

A five-year investigation reveals how the most militant blue-collar workers in Sochaux are growing older but continuing to stand up for their beliefs even after their retirement.

Prisoners on Strike in the United States

Joël Charbit & Gwenola Ricordeau — 2018-10-15T07:00:00Z

Between August 21 and September 9, 2018, American prisoners were called to strike by several of their organizations. It is not the first time that such a mobilization takes place. A socio-historical approach allows to put it into perspective, and illustrates the contradictions between the prison system and collective action.

The Enigma of Peronism

Humberto Cucchetti — 2018-03-05T08:00:00Z

Peronism, a political and social movement, has structured life in Argentina since the 1940s, and has been emulated elsewhere in Latin American. But it eludes any precise definition. Neither a dictatorship, nor a democracy, this plebiscitary regime is based on the army and trade unions.

“Life Goin' Nowhere”

Michael C. Behrent — 2011-12-14T10:46:13Z

Rocky, John Travolta, Bruce Springsteen or the Al Pacino of Dog Day Afternoon are all witnesses to the understudied disappearance of the American working class in the 1970s. During this crucial decade, Nixon took over the working-class vote and workers themselves changed the boundaries of “blue-collar America,” doing away with class interests and embracing a definition of themselves as members of a white culture.

Disorder in Modernity

Evelyne Payen-Variéras — 2011-12-08T10:20:48Z

Historians of business have looked at the development of railroads in the U.S. as a time of “managerial revolution.” Richard White's latest book shows the role played by disorder and sheer contingency in this process, and runs counter to a view of economic modernity as the history of a rationalization. Business, in his view, was never just business.

The World Social Forum Challenge

Geoffrey Pleyers — 2009-01-28T12:18:48Z

The 8^th World Social Forum opened on January 27^th in Belem, Brazil. Geoffrey Pleyers explains the situation of the alter-globalisation movement: in spite of the success of its ideas in the wake of the world economic crisis, the movement is looking for new ways of action.

Emerging from Dependence : Domestic Employees' Trade Unions in Brazil

Dominique Vidal — 2008-06-18T07:33:24Z

Our societies are currently witnessing high speed development of direct personal services, which are suspected of concealing a return to domesticity. What should be done so that those who work in these trades avoid the pathologies of dependence and paternalism? Brazil's example sheds light on these questions.