Catalog All books
Barbara Demeneix
Toxic Cocktails How Endocrine Disrupters Are Poisoning Our Brains
Written for the general reader, the book is startling as it reveals the scandalous damage to our brains being caused by chemical pollution. Concrete measures, scientifically proven, to put an end to the tragic mistakes that have been committed in Western countries for over fifty years.
Philippe Desan
Montaigne Thinking about the Social
A study destined to become a work of reference, one that will be required for all courses on Montaigne.
François Lévêque
Imperfect Competition
A very wide diversity of examples taken from all sectors. Very educational, well written, and easy to understand, this book is also an economics lesson for Dummies.
Philippe Moati
The Future of Large-Scale Distribution
Few phenomena have changed our urban centres as much as the birth of large-scale distribution: our towns ans cities have been transformed, as have our methods of purchasing, and even our places of social interaction have moved. This is perhaps only the beginning. In this book, Philippe Moati reviews the development of large-scale distribution during the three decades of prosperity that followed World War II and the economic crisis that succeeded them. He analyses the problems encountered by large-scale distribution today and examines the development strategies that are currently being put into practice and the revolutions which are perhaps to come. Philippe Moati teaches economics at the University of Paris-VII and is a director of research at CREDOC.
Alain Boureau
Satan, the Heretic History of demonology in Medieval Europe, 1260-1350
Alain Boureau is one of the most original French medievalists. In his earlier, best-selling book on the droit du seigneur, he showed that such a custom had never actually existed. The present work is not about Satan and Satanism, but about the birth of demonology, i.e. about the demons that inhabit Satan's Court - a fascinating topic for a medievalist. Before the end of the thirteenth century, theology had shown little interest in demons, according to Boureau. But Saint Thomas Aquinas' Treatise on Evil, written in 1272, changed all this. Boureau tries to find an explanation. He is not concerned with why people believe in demons - he has not written a social history of demonology. Instead, he sets out to understand why theologians became interested in the subject - for this is a history of theological ideas about demons. The author summarises his explanation as follows: I propose that the date of the invention of demonology be moved forward by more than a century, not because a new doctrine was established and enforced then, as was the case in the fifteenth century, but because of the considerable procedural changes that assimilated witchcraft and invocations of the devil with the crime of heresy, which in turn led to new legal developments and more revelations. In addition, the injection of doctrinal content into the ancient theme of the devil's pact explained demoniac activity in the world. The issue that lies at the heart of these discussions about a pact with the devil, evil and evidence is obviously the emergence of our legal system. Alain Boureau is a director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.
Howard Gardner
Multiple Intelligences
What is intelligence ? A precise, measurable and well-defined faculty ? No, says Howard Gardner, there a many different kinds of intelligence constituting the unique cognitive profile of each individual. This book opens new horizons for those who believe that intelligence is a phenomenon far too complex to be measured by simple I.Q. texts and explores new ways of comprehending human nature. Howard Gardner is a professor at Harvard University in the United States.
Anatole Abragam
Physics Before Everything New Edition
A. Abragam's autobiography is a fascinating introduction to the world of physics. We follow the uprooted Russian pupil through trial and discovery, witnessing his transformation into accomplished physician. An inspiring work for the moments of pure discovery, when proven evidence seems to magically match theoretical predictions.
Françoise Héritier, Margarita Xanthakou
Body and Affects
The articles gathered here, written by eminent French anthropologists, present a novel angle on the way societies function. The writers argue that because societies are not abstract intellectual constructions, they cannot be dissociated from the physical individuals that constitute them, or from the affects (feelings and emotions) expressed by them. Included here are studies of Western and non-Western societies on such subjects as skin colour, religious rituals involving animals, witchcraft and flying sorcerers, passion in traditional North African cultures, and breast-feeding (both induced lactation to breastfeed infant girls and spontaneous lactation to breastfeed infant boys) in parts of Italy. Françoise Héritier is an anthropologist and teaches at the Collège de France. She is the author of Les Deux Soeurs et leur mère and Masculin/Féminin I and II, published by Editions Odile Jacob. Margarita Xanthakou, an anthropologist, is a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).