Colonial art
In a wide-ranging essay on the construction of race in the arts of the Enlightenment, Anne Lafont fascinatingly tracks the
August Lights
La Vie des idées is on vacation. We will be back at the end of August. In the meantime, here
Cities sold on the stock exchange
In India, urban growth is so rapid that in a few years cities are springing up on agricultural areas. To
Lesbos, European scandal
The Greek island of Lesbos, the homeland of Sappho and Anacreon, the cradle of Epicureanism, once a dream destination, has
What the scam contains
The “Queen’s Necklace” affair, the Ponzi scheme, and Madoff’s schemes were made possible by specific socio-economic structures. These fascinating stories
The “vitriolic moment”
The assault, which involves throwing sulfuric acid in a victim’s face, entered the French public eye at the end of
Nations on paper
From the middle of the XIXe century, statistics and its derivatives made it possible to strengthen the State by quantifying
Plants are not stupid
Through this phenomenology of plant life, the philosopher Florence Burgat reminds us that plants are defined above all by what
The Investigator, the Nazi and His Son
Lawyer Philippe Sands, grandson of persecuted Jews, investigated the character of Otto von Wächter, Austrian SS and governor of Krakow
Belgrade-Paris: Left-wing experiences
Introduced in Yugoslavia in 1949, the principle of self-management in companies fascinated large sections of the French left until the