Books & ideas

Raised Among the Ruins

Charlotte Canizo — 2026-03-05T09:00:00Z

By adopting a child's perspective, Camille Mahé shows that younger children perceived the Second World War differently than adults.

France's multi-faceted agricultural empire

Romain Blancaneaux — 2023-01-11T12:26:44Z

Although France is a significant player in world agriculture; it still benefits from a rural image made up of small producers. Venus Bivar tackles this paradox and shows how the industrialization of French agriculture has fostered niche productions, including organic farming.

Of Viruses and Men

Cynthia Colmellere — 2020-10-26T08:00:00Z

At the frontiers of epidemiology and social history, Delphine Berdah compares the very different health policies implemented in France and the United Kingdom in the fight against tuberculosis and foot-and-mouth disease.

Democracy Distorted

Ivan Ascher & Marieke Louis — 2020-10-13T07:30:00Z

Is it really the case, as is often alleged, that money decides everything about elections? As the US presidential election is looming, La Vie des idées/Books & Ideas and Public Books team up to examine the influence of money in today's electoral democracies.

The Limits of Transparency

Eric Phélippeau — 2020-10-13T07:00:00Z

In France as in the United States, transparency has become a core democratic requirement, and is the cornerstone of all the laws that claim to regulate the funding of political life. But this art of disclosing information often coexists with the ability to conceal it.

Neoliberalism à la française

Matthew Soener — 2020-02-03T08:00:00Z

From Mitterrand's “rigueur” to Hollande's “mandate,” Bruno Amable charts the transformation of French capitalism and reveals the making of a political crisis.

Writing Intellectual History

Iain Stewart — 2019-10-07T07:00:00Z

Should the history of intellectuals also be a history of ideas? François Dosse's book reorients scholarship in this field by integrating ideas and high culture into the traditionally more sociologically informed history of French intellectuals.

The Afro: More Than a Hairstyle

Ary Gordien — 2019-09-19T07:00:00Z

Recent contentious comments on social media in France show that the hair of Afro-descendants is still stigmatized. How is one to explain this persistence of the stigmatization of curly hair? What are the underlying political stakes of these seemingly purely aesthetic considerations?

The Price of Tolerance

Michael Stambolis — 2019-09-09T06:30:00Z

In her analysis of the way the heterosexual residents of gentrified gay neighbourhoods see homosexuality, the sociologist Sylvie Tissot reveals logics of domination dressed up as progressivism.

Taking Metal Music Seriously

Catherine Guesde — 2019-07-04T07:06:26Z

Over the past twenty years, a new field of study has developed: metal studies. The scholars in this field are often also music enthusiasts, investigating their own passion. How can fandom be articulated with academia?