Books & ideas

A historical cruise through Paris' rivers

Pauline Guéna — 2026-03-17T11:00:00Z

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, as the monarchy established its authority across French territory, the rivers of the Paris Basin continued to be managed by various actors through negotiations aimed at coordination.

Geographers in Battalions

Cédric Tellenne — 2025-09-18T07:00:00Z

At the beginning of World War II, Americans were convinced that German geopolitical thinking was behind the stunning military successes of the Nazis. They sought to turn this thinking against their enemies, before using it as a weapon against the USSR during the Cold War.

Scandinavia beyond the Vikings

Victor Barabino — 2025-03-13T15:29:49Z

With its distinct natural resources, its openness to the outside world, and the hierarchical society it fostered, the period before the Viking era counts among the most poorly known periods in Scandinavian history. It must be reinterpreted from the standpoint of a broader history of the first millennium CE.

Social sciences in the face of disorder

Marielle Debos — 2022-01-06T13:35:31Z

How can social sciences think through the constitutive disorder of a society? When groups marked by “bad reputation” refuse to be an object of knowledge, how can we write about them? This is the challenge presented to researchers by the Tubu of Chad.

Quran & Scholars

Matteo Bächtold — 2020-11-16T08:00:00Z

The three large volumes of Le Coran des historiens (The Historian's Quran) revolutionises the reading of this text, much as the historical-critical exegesis of the Bible did in the 19^th century. It does this by carefully situating the Quran in its historical, political religious and legal context and at the crossroads of the civilisations that engendered it.

Reinventing Capitalism

Torben Iversen — 2020-06-15T07:00:00Z

Should we blame capitalism for the challenges rich democracies have been facing over the past thirty years—from growing inequality to the rise of populism? According to Torben Iversen, the opposite is true: it was democracy that transformed capitalism to take full advantage of new technologies.

A Flu that Left a Hundred Million Dead

Étienne Forestier-Peyrat — 2020-05-28T07:00:00Z

Caught between the great epidemics of the past and the horrors of the world war, the 1918-1919 flu has long struggled to be recognized as a major health disaster. Reactions to the current epidemic testify to the persistence of denial in the face of troubling outbreaks of disease.

Politics as an Art of Living

Solange Chavel — 2020-03-12T08:00:00Z

What if it were necessary, in politics, to allow ourselves to be guided by our affinities rather than trying to build a general and often too distant theoretical position? And what if proximity had more value than truth? This is Valérie Gérard's hypothesis, in an open-minded and stimulating book.

Enlightened Vegetarians

Sophie Audidière — 2020-03-05T07:59:16Z

In the eighteenth century, vegetarianism was viewed as a philosophical question in its own right, at the intersection of debates about animal suffering and good health. It was also a controversial issue that saw anti-Christianism and social criticism produce similar positions.

Cannibal Machine

Martin Gibert — 2020-01-23T08:00:00Z

Are intelligent machines attacking human labor? In his study of the digital labor hiding behind the promises of automation and robots, Antonio Casilli notably argues that social media constitute a form of unpaid work.