Two hundred years after its emergence in the West, capitalism has become a culture in the broad sense, a way of life, and an ideology. It permeates all spheres of society, including work and politics, and insinuates itself in children through education and the family.
In a stimulating essay, Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz denounce the ‘sciences of happiness’. In the service of neoliberal ideology, it encourages us to abandon any idea of political change and induces guilt in the ‘psytizens’ who are unable to follow its directives.
In contrast to general theories that claim to explain sports practices, a recent book sheds light on the forms of socialization and the institutions that make sports an eminently social phenomenon.
How can we explain Vladimir Putin’s extraordinary levels of popularity in Russia? Beyond accusations of poll manipulation and propaganda, Carine Clément traces the history and characteristics of “Putinism”, a system of ideas and practices feeding on patriotism and a general sense of political apathy throughout Russia.
Andreas Glaeser’s Political Epistemics is an account of the rise and fall of the East German Socialism as a field of consciousness. Relying on extensive archival research and interviews (including Stasi officers, secret informants & political dissidents), Glaeser offers a “theory of understandings” to provide a new angle on the question of how worldviews become institutionalized.
Can historians create a critical portrait of Mustafa Kemal, the first President of the Turkish Republic? This is no easy task, even with historical distance, because a personality cult and research theories borrowed from Kemalist ideology have had a strong impact on this field of study. Nevertheless, Şükrü Hanioğlu has undertaken to do so.
Native Americans have been touted as the quintessential American patriots. Their war record in the 20th century certainly does not contradict this assessment. More fruitful, however, would be to look at their patriotism as one aspect of their colonial relation with the United States.
