Books & ideas

A hard right turn ?

Gwendal Châton — 2026-01-15T09:00:00Z

Is France heading to the right, as everyone seems to think? According to Vincent Tiberj, it all depends on how this rightward turn is defined. For now, the French prefer the left's values.

How to dissent

Frédéric Martel — 2025-02-04T07:30:00Z

In this recent interview, Walzer reflects on his life of political commitment. From the creation of Dissent to the publication of the acclaimed Spheres of Justice, here is the journey of one of the most influential political theorists of the XXth century.

The left's Enlightenment origins

Marie Deschamps — 2024-06-20T13:41:00Z

For over a century, the left has owed its political identity and major political victories to a critical adherance to the Enlightenment. This is why, Stéphanie Roza argues, abandoning this legacy is dangerous.

Françoise d'Eaubonne's Ecofeminism

Iris Derzelle — 2021-03-22T08:00:00Z

Rediscovering an activist thinker who was at the origins of eco-feminism, but remains unknown. Her work inspired an extremely heterogeneous movement, but has her ambition to concretely transform the social, economic and political organisation of society been pursued?

Where Does the Left Stand in India?

Jules Naudet & Stéphanie Tawa-Lama Rewal — 2018-09-10T07:00:00Z

In India as in Europe, the left wing is struggling. Looking beyond the financialisation of the economy and disparities in social conditions, this essay sheds light on other factors explaining the weakness of the Indian left wing, from electoral dynamics to the criminalisation of the political class.

Reconciling Labor and Citizenship

Nicolas Hatzfeld — 2014-05-08T07:30:00Z

Bruno Trentin's last book, which has just come out in French, fifteen years after it was published in Italy and five years after his death, explores the failure of the European left to respond to the jobs crisis of the final decades of the 20^th century. Will the modern-day left succeed in forging a new nexus between citizens' rights and workers' rights?

Poverty Experts in the United States

Jacques Rodriguez — 2012-01-26T07:38:00Z

Is expertise about poverty possible in a country where the phenomenon itself is deemed morally perverse? In a recent book, Romain Huret analyzes the intellectual network that crystallized around the “war on poverty” in the 1960s.

The Fall of the House of Obama?

Pauline Peretz — 2011-12-30T10:36:17Z

Is there still room for hope at the White House?

“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.