Books & ideas

To your machines, citizens!

Stanislas Deprez — 2026-04-14T07:00:00Z

Against the trend towards experts having exclusive control over technological development — justified on the grounds of the public's alleged incompetence — Adeline Barbin argues that citizens should be given greater power so as to ensure that techniques are consistent with democratic values.

A World of Waste

Jean-Philippe Pierron — 2026-03-31T08:00:00Z

We would rather not see or even think about our waste, but it has a lot to tell us about our habits, our lives, and more importantly, about what we are doing to our world today.

A Plea for Degrowth

Céline Surprenant — 2016-10-20T07:00:00Z

That progress has negative effects is a well-worn idea. Yet, insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that they ensue from the excessiveness brought about by technological progress. Does that mean that there exists a scale favourable to the thriving of humans?

An Ideology of the Drone

Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer — 2014-11-06T09:00:00Z

Is the American government's drone warfare a radical kind of manhunting, or just a military tactic that can be used for various ends, ranging from highly legitimate to barbarous?

Life, a Model for Chemists

Lucie Campos — 2014-06-02T07:30:00Z

In the context of increasing uncertainty regarding how we will source our energy in the future, the bio-inspired chemistry of carbon and hydrogen is, according to Marc Fontecave, destined to play a major role in the development of renewable energies. His laboratory, which works at the crossroads of chemistry and biology, uses biological phenomena such as photosynthesis as its inspiration in inventing new materials, new catalysts and new reactions.

Astronomy in Expansion

Florent Guénard — 2014-05-22T07:30:00Z

Thanks to new scientific instruments and the globalisation of research, astronomy is currently an expanding science. F. Combes explains the directions she is taking with her research into our Universe, about which we still have so much left to discover.

The Two Lives of Ivan Illich

Augustin Fragnière — 2011-03-18T09:51:09Z

The French literary magazine Esprit evaluates the work of Ivan Illich. It first focuses on his denouncing the perverse effects of industrial society. It also analyzes the symbolic effects of the system of modern technology. Despite the thematic and methodological eclecticism of the two periods in his life, there is one central preoccupation that runs throughout, that of man and his autonomy.

We Have Always Been Modern

Anne Boissière — 2010-11-26T08:55:56Z

What does it mean to be modern? Is the modern era over, as proponents of post-modernism claim? Flying in the face of conventional definitions, Pierre-Damien Huyghe defends a conception of the modern based on the transformative power of technology, which has always been a characteristic of man.