To review the AI Act is no simple task. Philippe Huneman invites us to think beyond the legal text — to consider what AI really is, how it challenges our ideas of consciousness and causality.
Huneman reflects on centuries-old philosophy from thinkers like Hobbes, Leibniz, and Hume, and how it applies to the new world of Large Language Models and AI profiling. As Hume once said, causation is the "cement of the universe"—but AI may be un-cementing it.
Read the full review here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/without-cause/
This week, we’re showcasing a review of the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act by French philosopher Philippe Huneman.
The European Union’s AI Act — officially, the "Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence" — came into force last summer. But do you feel different? Is it working? Could we even tell if it was? Or are these the wrong questions altogether?
In Issue Six, Huneman offers a philosophical review of this landmark legislation, exploring its complexity and the deeper questions it raises.
Read the full review here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/without-cause/
Issue Six is here! A lilac cover binds together fiction by Adania Shibli, Théo Casciani & Agnes Lidbeck, a review of the EU’s new Artificial Intelligence Act, a lamentation of German carpet, a rummage through Jane Austen’s wardrobe, some probing questions about the past, present & future of photography, a wander around translations of The Waste Land and much more.
Dive into Issue Six here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/issues/issue-six/
What better essay to highlight in front of the paywall than our Issue Five review of a biography of a legendary San Remo hotel?
« perched above the azure waves of the Mediterranean amid the verdant, sun-kissed hills of the Ligurian riviera »
Find the article here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/last-resort/en
Patrick Doan is truly the ERB’s triple treat: designer of our print magazine, illustrator of all drawings therein and now also writer of an essay (and: a talented restorer of Seiko watches from the ’60s and ‘70s, but that’s beyond the ERB’s remit – for now).
This week in front of the paywall: Patrick’s beautiful Issue Five travelogue of a momentous family trip to Cambodia.
Find it here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/photographer-refugee-king/en
In the run-up to the European elections we have hefty discount for a limited time: a print+digital subscription for €115 €70 (that's 3 issues + unlimited digital access!) and a digital yearly subscription for only €50 €25.
Click the link for this offer:
https://europeanreviewofbooks.clienthub.nl/subscription-offer/
The day before the literary festival began, the « anarcho-capitalist paleolibertarian » Javier Milei won Argentina’s open primaries by surprise. By noon the following day, Monday 14 August, the Argentine peso lost 25 percent of its value. Something changed that Sunday, though nobody knew what, how much or for how long — least of all Milei, caught unawares by the results but ecstatically ready.
Read The anarcho-astrologer by Federico Perelmuter for free this weekend.
https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-anarcho-astrologer/en
Michael Erard—linguist, writer, connoisseur of the history of hyperpolyglotism—reviews The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqui, a novel in which a young translator encounters a new way to learn a language: by devouring a native speaker. Read this essay from issue 5 for free!
Read it here:
https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/cannibalinguistics/en
«It is the era’s great novel not of anti-Zionism per se, but more particularly of post-Zionist disillusionment. That is what a reader today might thrill to, when ‘Zionism’ no longer evokes an abstract aspiration but a murderous ideology.»
Read Sudeep Dasgupta piece on Jacob Israël de Haan’s Palestine and Arnold Zweig’s novel of post‑Zionist disillusionment here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-size-of-longing/en
May we present: Issue Five of the European Review of Books. It’s verdant green, and the vignette on the cover is a teddy bear that doesn’t want to budge.
Issue Five has questions: How best to lose Eurovision? What is Russia-themed erotica about? And it has destinations: refugees and guards on the Polish border, Europe’s noisiest island, early Zionist disillusionment in Palestine, a return to Phnom Penh. Javier Milei literarily considered, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend, Walter Benjamin’s last resort, Hélène Cixous on fiery foundations, philosophy at sea.
Subscribe now or buy your copy of Issue Five in our webshop.
Issue Five contains some brilliant writing to wander in, accompanied by some equally brilliant vignettes – drawn by the ERB’s print designer Patrick Doan. The new issue will be sent to print subscribers this week, and arrives on our website on 9 April.
Issue Five is almost here! It arrives in verdant green, with brilliant writing to wander in. On Eurovision’s losers, Slavic erotica, Palestinian intimacies and Maltese noise. Dispatches from Istanbul, Buenos Aires and Białowieża Forest. Essays and interviews from Europe’s many corners. Subscribe now to have it land on your doormat in the coming weeks.
When we visited the ERB’s printer – our friends of Wilco Art Books – earlier this week, Issue Five and its predecessors greeted us at the door. This vision in verdant green will land on subscribers' doormats in the coming weeks, and online on 9 April.
May we present: Issue Two! Wisdom for an anxious age and well-sharpened profanity for a vulgar one. New books, invented languages, resurrected darlings, and to every reader their own Dichter und Denker. Plus paranormal detectives and Chinese palindromes. Jump in here: https://europeanreviewofbooks.com/issues/issue-2
