Catalog All books
Pierre Karli
The Brain and Freedom
What is the relationship of man with the world, the others, with himself? To this perpetual question, many answers have been given by the various, religious or philosophical systems of thought. Pierre Karli, a neurophysiologist, proposes to look in the direction of science. He shows, by synthesizing the most advanced scientific works, how individual freedom finds its roots at the very heart of the brain.
Robert Darnton
Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France
At the beginning of 1778, Franz-Anton Mesmer arrived in Paris where he set about expounding his rather exotic theory - that the universe was swimming in a fluid which was responsible for occurences such heat, light, electricity and magnetism, but it was this fluid's relevance to medicine which he wished to highlight. In order to restablish health and man's harmony with nature he undertook strange healing sessions which became the origins of an extraordinary craze. Quickly, mesmerism became a disguised political theory. In demonstrating the links of mesmerism to politics, and the scientific notions of the age, Robert Darnton provides in this work a decisive contribution to the study of the diffusion of ideas in French society at the end of the 18th century. Robert Darnton is a professor at the University of Princeton
Nathalie Zajde
The Children of the Survivors (New Edition) The Transmission of Trauma to Jewish Children
"I have terrible nightmares and I would like to know if other children of survivors have the same dreams as me. I think it is crazy to have never lived through the war, yet have these extremely precise dreams." In Jewish families, why do the children of those who escaped Nazi extermination often have the same dreams as their parents, even though their parents have never spoke about the traumas which they lived through ? Reinforced by cleverly recounted stories, this book describes precisely what is called the survivors syndrome, an illness which manifests itself through nightmares, feelings of intense terror and desertion, a particular and incurable annoyance, recurring memories, and unfounded fears. It demonstrates that, thanks to the techniques of ethno- psychiatry, it is possible for these children of survivors to take back their place among the living. Clinical psychologist, and master of conference at the University Paris VIII, Nathalie Zajde is also a researcher at the Georges Devereux Centre.
Petr Skrabanek
The End of Humanitarian Medicine
Medicine is at a crossroads. Traditionally, practitioners helped patients who came to them looking for support, for something to alleviate their suffering. However, the progress which has been accomplished in the last few decades has changed everything. Doctors now claim to be fighting death itself, they believe medicine to have almost limitless powers, and they try to prevent illness by changing behaviour. From this point onwards, our entire existence becomes overmedicalized. In the name of health at any price, doctors now dictate, prescribe and legislate whilst forgetting the essential meaning of their job : to help and to care. A violent criticism of contemporary medicine.
Alain Prochiantz
Biology in the Bedroom
Inspiring himself from La Philosophie dans le boudoir by Sade and the major philosophical works of the 18th century, Alain Prochiantz, who is a neurobiologist, explains by means of a dialogue, the progress of embryology and neurobiology and gives us the elements so that we can understand and measure the stakes of the recent discovery of the genes of development. Alain Prochiantz heads the Laboratory for the Development and Evolution of the Nervous System at the École normale supérieure. He is notably the author of Strategies of the Embryo, and Claude Bernard, the Physiological Revolution.