Books & ideas

Plato Banned, American Democracy Threatened

Nathan Bracher — 2026-02-24T08:00:00Z

Not only in Texas, where a professor was ordered to remove Plato from his syllabus, but throughout the United States, ideological dictatorship has begun. It amounts to nothing less than an attack on universities, the freedom of speech, and thought. How is it possible to resist in the face of this onslaught?

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.

Discrimination as a “test”

Frédérique Jean — 2025-09-09T12:20:16Z

Mickaëlle Provost seeks to understand oppression through lived experience, in all its uniqueness. She also shows how shared awareness of this suffering and the ways in which it is erased can create solidarity and pave the way for collective resistance.

Living in a dictatorship

Karine Clément — 2023-07-11T06:30:00Z

A new book uses an ethnological approach to shed light on the spaces of freedom and solidarity created by citizens in rural Belarus, Europe's last dictatorship. But these spaces, in some cases, also accommodate the regime.

On Earth (Not) As in Heaven

André Loez — 2023-05-16T15:13:46Z

In her study of the fate of the 100,000 or so airmen who fell during the Second World War, Claire Andrieu challenges the separation between civilians and soldiers, regular and irregular combatants, wait-and-see attitudes and active resistance, frontline and rear, through an empirical investigation that is destined to become a landmark work.

Salutary Slowness

Côme Souchier — 2023-03-02T07:22:00Z

Slowness is no mere lack of speed, but rather the highest degree of resistance to a world that is spiraling out of control and trying to drag people into an endless race towards acceleration.

Nature and Alternative Spaces

Editorial Team — 2019-07-15T07:00:00Z

Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will resume its publication schedule on August 26. In the meantime, we present to you a weekly selection of articles published over the last year.

Forest Resistance

Matthieu Calame — 2018-11-22T08:02:47Z

By enmeshing infrastructures, power is able to curtail local particularities, exploit resources, and fight group autonomy. Inhabiting territories engaged in struggle makes it possible to resist power. “Being a forest,” whether in Notre-Dame-des-Landes or Borneo, means becoming ungovernable.

The Partisan Justice

Alya Aglan — 2017-05-25T07:00:00Z

From a “minor event”, the execution of two traitors from the Aosta Valley in 1943, Sergio Luzzatto offers us an extensive depiction of the history and memory of the Resistance against a backdrop of Jew hunts, denunciations, and civil war.

Zomia, Land Without State

Nicolas Delalande — 2013-05-20T07:00:00Z

For two thousand years, according to James Scott, the mountains of Zomia were a place of refuge for the people of Southeast Asia. For the author, this region, as a centre of resistance to the state, holds up a mirror to our destructive and self-confident civilisation. A fascinating and intriguing anarchist history.