Progressive Geographies

Pierre Nora : “Figure de la vie intellectuelle française, historien et éditeur”, mk2 Bibliothèque, Paris, 27 September 2022

Free, but registration required.

Après Jeunesse (Gallimard) paru en 2021, l’historien Pierre Nora présente le second volet de ses Mémoires : Une étrange obstination (Gallimard). En revenant sur son parcours, mêlant portraits, anecdotes savoureuses et genèse de ses travaux d’historien, il évoque avec passion ses années Gallimard et son compagnonnage avec différentes figures marquantes, parmi lesquelles Michel Foucault, Georges Dumézil, ou encore Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Un entretien modéré par Jean Birnbaum, directeur du Monde des Livres. Il est l’auteur de nombreux essais dont récemment La Religion des faibles (2018, Seuil) et Le Courage de la nuance (2021, Seuil) qui ont rencontré un vif succès.

Update: The Gallimard page for Mémoires and Jeunesse is now in the cheaper Folio series.

The Political Economy of Land: Rent, Financialization and Resistance, edited By Mika Hyötyläinen, Robert Beauregard – Routledge, November 2022

Looks interesting, but that price is terrible, especially given the topic…

Recent years have seen a gathering interest in the importance of real estate development to the growth and development of cities. This has included theoretical work on such topics as land rent and property rights as well as empirical studies on property investments, assetization, securitization, and the effects of changing property values on economic growth and the global status of cities. In the field of urban political economy, attention has turned particularly to the financialization of land and the built environment and to the globalization of property ownership, real estate development, and architectural design. This edited volume brings together a collection of original investigations of the current thinking on three broad themes: the assetization of land and buildings, the relationship of land rent to valuation and speculation in the markets for private and public properties, and the different ways in which land functions as a social relation. In order to ground the discussion, each chapter combines a theoretical perspective with empirical evidence. And, to convey a sense of the global nature of these phenomena, the book includes cases from Finland, India, Spain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, China, and the United States. 

Although its prime goal is to solidify and extend the political economy of land, the book is also a celebration of the Finnish scholar Anne Haila who was a major contributor to this literature and, specifically, to the work of the book’s authors. Prior to her sudden death in 2019, she was a key figure in the discussions that are at the core of the political economy of land: the book, in part, is a public acknowledgement of her contributions.

Pierre Hadot, Don’t Forget to Live: Goethe and the Tradition of Spiritual Exercises – University of Chicago Press, March 2023, translated by Michael Chase, with a Foreword by Arnold I. Davidson and Daniele Lorenzini

In his final book, renowned philosopher Pierre Hadot explores Goethe’s relationship with spiritual exercises—transformative acts of intellect, imagination, or will. Goethe sought both an intense experience of a single moment as well as a kind of cosmic consciousness through practices that alternatively concentrated on or distanced himself from his present life. These practices, in Hadot’s reading of the poem “Urworte,” shaped Goethe’s audacious hope against mortality’s Momento mori (don’t forget to die)—the demonic, chance, love, and necessity that condition human life. Ultimately, Hadot reveals how Goethe cultivated a deep love for life around a new commandment: don’t forget to live.

Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians – John Hunt/Zer0 – reissue, September 2022

The British Marxist Historians remains the first and most complete study of the founders of one of the most influential contemporary academic traditions in history and social theory. In this classic text, Kaye looks at Maurice Dobb and the debate on the transition to capitalism; Rodney Hilton on feudalism and the English peasantry; Christopher Hill on the English Revolution; Eric Hobsbawm on workers, peasants and world history; and E.P. Thompson on the making of the English working class. Kaye compares their perspective on history with other approaches, such as that of the French Annales school, and concludes with a discussion of the British Marxist historians’ contribution to the formation of a democratic historical consciousness. The British Marxist Historians is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the intellectual history of the late twentieth century.