Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

Goglio, Valentina / Biancalana, Cecilia (eds.), Mapping the Evolution of Platform Society: Multidisciplinary Insights from Social and Political Sciences. 232 pp. 2025:3 (Emerald, UK) <734-845>
ISBN 978-1-83608-029-9 hard ¥22,638.- (税込) US$ 105.00

Our society is becoming inextricably intertwined with digital platforms. Mapping the Evolution of Platform Society brings together a team of multidisciplinary scholars from across Europe to delve into the intricate web of challenges and opportunities posed by the digital landscape. The chapters provide novel research on the impact of platforms on education, politics and social disadvantage. Delivering a necessary update to seminal work with new empirical evidence and evolving key challenges - such as the role of TikTok - the authors do not merely identify risks of the 'platformization' of society, they offer a vital exploration of potential solutions and best practices. Opening with an introduction by the editors and a chapter dedicated to framing the risk analysis and assessment in the platform society, it then covers five sections exploring education and lifelong learning, discrimination and marginalized communities, media and news dissemination, the digital transformation of government, and the research agenda on platforms. Encompassing case studies and analyses from countries and regions often overlooked in existing literature, this collection offers a truly global perspective on the evolution of the opportunities and inherent challenges posed by the platform society. Emerging from genuine interdisciplinarity, deriving from rigorous research across education, social work, journalism, government, and environmental studies, this is rich reading for scholars from across the political and social sciences interested in the risks and opportunities of this evolving societal trend.

Frickel, Scott / Moore, Kelly, Science and Inequality: A Political Sociology. 184 pp. 2025:1 (Polity Pr., UK) <734-58>
ISBN 978-1-5095-1479-3 hard ¥14,003.- (税込) US$ 64.95
ISBN 978-1-5095-1480-9 paper ¥4,947.- (税込) US$ 22.95

Science and technology produce a wide range of benefits in society but they also create harm, both of which are unequally distributed across social groups and geographic regions. This incisive book provides a set of analytical tools to understand how inequality relating to science and technology is produced, and how the field can be reorganized to make good on its promise to improve life for all. Using a range of evidence and examples, Frickel and Moore show that science and technology are closely bound up with social inequalities, including linked problems of poor health, environmental degradation, racism, and sexism. They use the frame of "scientific inequality formations" to investigate the technoscientific sources of unequal power relations in society, examining issues such as the underdevelopment of non-profitable technologies, how laws and markets direct scientific advances, and the exclusion of certain social groups from the creation of knowledge and solutions relevant to their lives. This timely book illuminates interventions that redirect science and technology toward more equitable ends with the potential to be more widely distributed, charting a path to a more just future.

Baker, Alison, Socially Just Research with Young People: Creating Activist Solidarities in Times of Crisis. (Studies in Childhood and Youth) 384 pp. 2024:12 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <734-1210>
ISBN 978-3-031-69295-6 hard ¥30,598.- (税込) EUR 129.99

This book bridges the fields of critical youth studies, community psychology, and sociology to offer a transdisciplinary analysis of youth voice, participation, and activism, as well as of creative and inclusive knowledge-making practices. Presented in three parts, the book traces our journey of praxis as we documented the narratives and testimonies of young people and then mobilised this knowledge to co-imagine and co-create a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) collective aimed at fostering connection and healing during the stringent lockdowns of 2020 in Victoria, Australia. Community building and art-making became central to memorialising their experiences of grief and loss, whilst also opening up new ways of seeing, being and doing. With no end in sight to our current coalescence of crises, this book serves as an invitation to those working alongside young people to consider what we must carry with us if we are to reimagine and remake our world.

Boltanski, Luc / Esquerre, Arnaud, The Making of Public Space: News, Events and Opinions in the Twenty-First Century. 278 pp. 2024:12 (Polity Pr., UK) <734-1211>
ISBN 978-1-5095-6277-0 hard ¥15,081.- (税込) US$ 69.95
ISBN 978-1-5095-6278-7 paper ¥5,810.- (税込) US$ 26.95

This new book by Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre is a highly original analysis of the two key processes that shape the contemporary public sphere. On the one hand, there are the processes of news provision which select out a range of facts and events and bring them to the attention of a large number of people who have not, for the most part, experienced them directly. On the other hand, there are processes of politicization which problematize the facts made known by news provision and treat them as issues that concern citizens and the state. Politicization is typically characterized by a diversity of interpretations which, in turn, gives rise to a proliferation of commentary, discussion, polemic and division. In order to study these processes and their interaction, Boltanski and Esquerre draw on a vast repository of user comments left on the site of a major daily newspaper, as well as the thousands of comments posted on an online video site. They uncover what is sayable by comparing published comments with those deleted by moderators. They capture opinions in the course of their formation, rather than describing views which have long become cemented; these are often reflexive and wise, deriving from responses to interviews or opinion polls. They map out the parameters of politicization today, touching on various hot topics such as feminism, the environment, immigration, religion, nationalism and Europe. This is not just a book about the news and the press, but a major new work which shows how political opinion comes into being and the way in which it affects our daily lives. It will be of great value to students and scholars in media studies, sociology and politics, as well as to anyone interested in the state of politics and the media in our contemporary digital age.

Forster, Laura C. / White, Joel, Friends in Common: Radical Friendship and Everyday Solidarities. (FireWorks) 208 pp. 2025:6 (Pluto Pr., UK) <734-1212>
ISBN 978-0-7453-5058-5 paper ¥4,840.- (税込) GB￡ 16.99

Friendship is full of revolutionary potential in the face of a profoundly anti-social capitalist system. Friends in Common explores friendship as a radical practice, capable of upending hierarchies and producing social change. Friendship can transcend social boundaries and political borders. It is vital in building communities and underpinning solidarity. But its transformative potency ensures that it is heavily policed and restrained by the state. Understanding the radical possibilities of friendship can help us rethink our approach to family, work and politics, and show us new routes to resistance and ways to open up spaces of solidarity and escape. The dissonance created by comparing societal expectations around friendship and a lonely reality, especially in the wake of an isolating global pandemic, is deeply alienating. Friends in Common shows that friendship as a political practice is foundational to strengthening revolutionary ideas and projects, and is the antidote to capitalist despair.

Ritzer, Ivo (ed.), On the Critique of Identity. (Abhandlungen zur Medien- und Kulturwissenschaft) 255 pp. 2025:2 (J. B. Metzler, GW) <734-1215>
ISBN 978-3-662-69446-6 paper ¥23,536.- (税込) EUR 99.99

With the rise of 'identity politics' both in right-wing extremism as well as in activist academia, arts and feuilleton, major differences between the traditional left and the right have become blurred. This book addresses the ideological shifts from a vantage point of critical theory, psychoanalysis, as well as Marxist interventions. Discussed are prevailing ideologies of identitarianism, putting the latter into social and historical, as well as philosophical and epistemological context. The chapters offer theoretical elaborations on the myriad connections of identitarianism and counter-enlightenment, analyzing in particular the role of ethnocentric populism, antisemitism, as well as conformist and conservative rebellion.