HEC Bookshttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/19352024-03-28T09:48:43Z2024-03-28T09:48:43ZRussia against modernityETKIND, Alexanderhttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/767072024-03-16T02:03:09Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZRussia against modernity
ETKIND, Alexander
Putin's war is a "special operation" against modernity. The invasion has been directed against Ukraine, but the war has a broader target: the modern world of climate awareness, energy transition and digital labor. By trading oil and gas, promoting Trump and Brexit, spreading corruption, boosting inequality and homophobia, subsidizing far-right movements and destroying Ukraine, Putin's clique aims at suppressing the ongoing transformation of modern societies. Alexander Etkind distinguishes between Russia's pompous, weaponized paleomodernity, on the one hand, and the lean, decentralized gaiamodernity of the Anthropocene, on the other. Putin's clique has used various strategies - from climate denialism and electoral interference to war and genocide - to resist and subvert modernity. Working on political, cultural and even demographic levels, social mechanisms convert the vicious energy of the oil curse into all-out aggression. Dissecting these mechanisms, Etkind's brief but rigorous analyses of social structuration, cultural dynamics and family models reveal the agency that drives the Russian war against modernity. This short, sharp critique of the Russian regime combines political economy, social history and demography to predict the decolonizing and defederating of Russia.
Published online: 19 June 2023
2023-01-01T00:00:00ZL'invention d'une frontière : entre France et Allemagne, 1871-1914VAILLOT, Benoithttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/766412024-03-01T02:02:50Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZL'invention d'une frontière : entre France et Allemagne, 1871-1914
VAILLOT, Benoit
Avec la défaite française de 1871, la frontière séparant la France de l’Allemagne se voit déplacée du Rhin aux Vosges. La quasi-totalité de l’Alsace, une partie de la Lorraine, et plus d’un million et demi de personnes passent sous le drapeau du Reich. Pendant près d’un demi-siècle, la vie quotidienne des populations, devenues frontalières, s’en trouve métamorphosée. C’est l’analyse du rapport concret des habitants à cette nouvelle ligne qui intéresse Benoit Vaillot. Comment la franchissent-ils, la contournent-ils, et s’en accommodent-ils ? De quelle manière en tirent-ils parti ou, au contraire, s’en désolent-ils ? Quelles sont leurs façons de la penser, de l’appréhender et de l’incorporer dans leur vie ? L’expérience de la frontière est étudiée à travers une pluralité d’objets : le contrôle des personnes, des animaux et des marchandises ; le braconnage, la contrebande et l’espionnage ; les stratégies de nationalité des habitants ; les pratiques sportives et touristiques ; ou encore les nouveaux défis posés par les premières pandémies mondiales, et le développement de l’automobile et de l’aéronautique. On découvre que c’est autour de cette frontière qu’a été inventée la notion d’espace aérien national et qu’ont été installés systématiquement, et pour la première fois, des poteaux-frontières et des barrières. Mais on lui doit aussi le ravage actuel des forêts d’Alsace et de Lorraine par le scolyte, un insecte particulièrement friand des épicéas et des pins, que les gardes forestiers allemands ont favorisé à la fin du XIXe siècle. La frontière franco-allemande entre 1871 et 1914 a constitué un véritable laboratoire. À bien des égards, elle porte en elle les germes des profondes transformations que connaîtront la souveraineté et l’identité nationale en Europe au cours du XXe siècle.
Published: 07 September 2023
2023-01-01T00:00:00ZTutte le perle del mondo : storie di viaggi, scambi e magnifici ornamentiMUZZARELLI, Maria GiuseppinaMOLÀ, LucaRIELLO, Giorgiohttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/764482024-02-06T02:03:52Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZTutte le perle del mondo : storie di viaggi, scambi e magnifici ornamenti
MUZZARELLI, Maria Giuseppina; MOLÀ, Luca; RIELLO, Giorgio
Rare e preziose, le perle hanno ispirato artisti e scrittori, conquistato in ogni epoca il favore di uomini e donne che le hanno incluse fra gli ornamenti prediletti. Culturalmente assai dense, sono emblema del lusso, della raffinatezza e della purezza, sinonimo delle vette di perfezione che può raggiungere madre natura. La Venere botticelliana fuoriesce da una conchiglia marina, quasi fosse una perla, evocando eterne nascite, un ciclo perennemente rinnovato di amore e procreazione. Allo stesso tempo simboleggiano anche dolore e perdita: quante perle nei funerali più chic... Il libro ci propone un viaggio avventuroso, dal Nuovo Mondo all’Asia, dal Venezuela al golfo Persico e a quello di Mannar, dalle piazze dello smercio più frenetico, come Venezia, Anversa e Siviglia, alla Cina e al Giappone: come venivano pescate le perle? chi le commerciava? chi le indossava? come giungevano nelle botteghe di orafi dalle mani sapienti e da lì, sotto forma di splendidi gioielli, nelle corti sfarzose a decorare i corpi e le vesti di re, regine, cortigiane e cortigiani? E quali erano i loro altri usi? Se il linguaggio che parlavano era soprattutto quello del potere, del prestigio e della bellezza, mille sono le sfumature che accompagnano la fortuna delle piccole sfere bianche e luminescenti lungo i secoli e fino ai giorni nostri.
2023-01-01T00:00:00ZThe long 1968 in Hungary and RomaniaMATUS, Adrian-Georgehttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/763712024-01-26T02:04:18Z2024-01-01T00:00:00ZThe long 1968 in Hungary and Romania
MATUS, Adrian-George
This book advances a local, regional, and comparative analysis of the history of the sixty-eighters from Hungary and Romania between 1956 and 1975. The aim of the book is to answer to the following research question: to what extent does 'the long 1968' mark and change protest history? Another axis of my research, equally important, is: how can one genuinely distinguish between a protest, an opposition, and a pastime? Where did radicalisation truly begin, and when was it solely an auto-perception as a dissident? In other words, how can one truly distinguish between a leisure activity like listening to Radio Free Europe or exploring an altered state of consciousness, and an explicit political activity like organising a protest or writing subversive texts? Among other aims, the books's scope is to understand where a leisure activity ends, and a protest starts. By 'practicing counterculture,' did the youth wish to contest the system or simply express themselves? As method, oral history plays a crucial part. On a superficial level, the interviews helped to fill in the archival gap. However, oral testimonies proved to reveal much more than essential factual information. Oral history clarified how political and social events influenced the subjects' memory formation.
Published: 31 December 2023
2024-01-01T00:00:00Z