Books & ideas

Race and the Republic

Claire Miot — 2025-06-17T05:48:21Z

The colonial period was eager to classify races according to their biological and cultural dispositions for war. The prejudice would persist through the wars of decolonization.

Sport as a battlefield

Michael C. Behrent & François Doppler-Speranza — 2025-03-27T08:00:00Z

After 1945, the geopolitical use of sport found a place in the alliances of the Cold War. Ideology and diplomacy slipped into every aspect of the practice of sports.

The Prolonged Suffering of the Syrian People

Leyla Dakhli — 2024-10-15T07:30:00Z

Arrests, torture, massacres: the Assad clan has been tormenting the Syrian people for the past 50 years. This major collective work provides conclusive evidence of the violence to which Europe turns a blind eye.

In Praise of the Intermediary

Piroska Nagy — 2024-09-12T07:00:00Z

“Fixers”, or dragomans, are vital intermediaries and interpreters for both journalists and soldiers in hostile terrain, and play a central role in a network of relationships and transfers. In the Middle Ages they embodied the need for otherness, and continue to do so today.

Nuclear Weapons: A Long-Overdue Conversation

Matthieu Calame — 2024-05-07T19:37:31Z

The destructive potential of nuclear weapons makes states “responsible” and helps stave off a Third World War; the process of triggering the bomb is controlled; proliferation must be avoided, but our nuclear arsenal must be modernized. If we are to dispel the myths surrounding nuclear weapons, a debate is needed.

Palestinians' mental and physical Health

Sélima Kebaïli — 2023-12-19T09:00:00Z

While mental health is usually assessed using objective health indicators, these measurements fail to address the intricate impact of persistent violence on Palestinians' lives.

“The Tragedy Has Never Left Us.” On the War in Ukraine

Florent Guénard — 2022-04-18T06:54:19Z

The invasion of Ukraine can seem to resurrect the images of the past: conquering armies, cities under siege, widespread destruction. The references to the Second World War abound, but they should not obscure the fact that this conflict, with all its complexity and tragedy, belongs firmly to the present.

From one war to another: Ukraine facing Russia

Florent Guénard & Thomas Vendryes — 2022-02-28T08:27:46Z

As Russia sets out to invade Ukraine, eight years after the Maidan Revolution and Russia's annexation of Crimea, Ukrainian economist Volodymyr Vakhitov looks back at the transformations Ukraine has undergone since 2014, and its relationship with Russia and Russians.

Liberal Democratic Killing

Emil Archambault — 2022-01-05T08:26:00Z

Targeted assassination campaigns seem increasingly well established as a newly prevalent way of war. Through a comparison between the United States and Israel's practices of assassination, Amélie Férey analyses the discourses which legitimise this practice despite its apparent incompatibility with political liberalism.

Contact and Dispossession

Juliette Tran — 2020-09-14T07:00:00Z

Interactions between Native Americans and Europeans in the Great Lakes Region have been the subject of groundbreaking works in American history. But there was more to the story than previously thought, as D. Nichols underlines Lakes Indians' effective forms of resistance and strategies of survival