Books & ideas

Organic pioneers

Matthieu Calame — 2025-03-20T06:00:00Z

Throughout the nineteenth century, ecological currents in the agricultural world promoted organic farming and the defense of small producers. The story of these “ecological farmers” sheds light on the forward-looking contract forged between agriculture and society.

Urban Countrysides

Matthieu Calame — 2024-02-20T06:30:00Z

The renaturation of cities offers several advantages in terms of healthcare, urban planning and economics. But urban gardens can also become a Trojan horse for gentrification. Is cultivating them really all that counter-cultural?

The Agriculture We Deserve

Pauline Guéna — 2023-11-14T07:30:00Z

While agribusiness is the object of ever more criticism, Matthieu Calame claims that no real agricultural transition will be possible as long as political and cultural leaders do not change too.

Let's Get This Bread

Michael C. Behrent & Jean Bérard — 2023-10-26T07:30:00Z

Alessandro Stanziani recounts the long story of how agriculture embraced capitalism and productivism, from the transformation of seeds and species to producers' farms, by way of peasant expropriation and the chemistry of fertilizers and pesticides.

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.

The Anthropocene: a Challenge for Agriculture

Bertrand Valiorgue — 2021-04-19T07:00:00Z

What will farming look like in the future? Will there still be room for agriculture? What is certain is that the time has come for a complete overhaul of a model that is now obsolete. This essay considers the possible scenarios.

A French Touch in the Sociology of Wealth

Nicolas Duvoux — 2021-03-29T07:00:00Z

A French qualitative strand of research opens new paths to understanding wealth accumulation in the post-Piketty era and renews our vision of elite groups and beyond.

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.

The Agricultural New Deal

Federico D'Onofrio — 2017-03-30T07:00:00Z

Addressing the issue of state intervention in agricultural markets, La Politique du Blé by Alain Chatriot examines the political debate behind the creation of the Office Interprofessionnel du Blé, the French national wheat pool, that was established in 1936 by the leftist government.

Alternative Foods, Activism and Strawberries in California

Thomas Grillot & Nicolas Larchet — 2015-02-10T06:00:00Z

Are alternative food movements the panacea for obesity, food-induced health problems and, simply, bad food? One doesn't need to be a reactionary to see the limits of the proposal, but we still have a hard time relinquishing that belief. Julie Guthman, whose work almost single-handedly launched scientific inquiry into those questions, helps us understand why.