Books & ideas

Building a Society That Values Care

Kathryn Cai — 2020-06-22T07:00:00Z

With the population aging in the US as in many Western countries, COVID-19 has only revealed an increasingly urgent need for care. But the lack of support for caregiving is an ongoing and increasingly shared struggle. How can we care for the caregivers, and build a society that values care?

The Soviet Union: A Shaky Welfare State

Grégory Dufaud — 2012-04-10T09:38:40Z

Though the Soviet system's ambitions were initially universalistic, the system of social protection that it established quickly proved discriminatory and insufficiently generous. In a recent book, Dorena Caroli uses social protection as a prism for considering the Soviet state's broader dysfunctions.

Economics: a Cure for Pessimism

Emmanuel Bétry — 2011-12-22T10:39:51Z

In a book devoted to economic anxieties in France, two economists well known in the blogosphere try to make their field accessible while conveying its complexity.

Red Ribbon and Black Silence

Sylvie Laurent — 2008-10-02T10:54:36Z

How is it possible to talk about the ravages of AIDS on the Black population of the United States without leaving oneself open to being viewed as racist, moralizing or simply communitarian? Barack Obama says he is determined to engage the United States in the fight against this worldwide plague but has a hard time talking about AIDS as an American evil and even less so as an African-American one.