Catalog All books

Jacques Cantier, Éric Jennings
The French Colonial Empire under Vichy
In the 1990s, historians began studying the Vichy government in the French colonial empire. The articles gathered here by Jacques Cantier and Eric Jennings are the outcome of recent exchanges among historians on the subject. The book reflects the writers' various research interests and includes: an examination of the political decision-making process, the composition of governing bodies, the development of institutions to strengthen government control of society, and the reaction of the local population to the new political measures. The editors' purpose is dual. First of all, the colonial mirror serves to elucidate the underlying logic and the workings of the regime that resulted from the French defeat. Secondly, the editors have sought to place the Vichy period into the wider context and more extended time frame of colonial history and decolonisation. They have done this by structuring their analysis of Vichy in the empire into several sections. The first part of the book examines the conditions under which the Vichy government tried to unite the colonial bloc to mainland France. The second part analyses Vichy's authoritarian policies, particularly those that aimed at controlling youth. The large demonstrations that took place in Vichy Algeria in 1941 illustrate the efforts undertaken to showcase the National Revolution in Algeria. The third part studies the different forms of repression exercised by the regime, particularly the conditions governing the application of anti-Semitic legislation in the empire, the stifling of the Masons, and the existence of internment camps in North Africa. The fourth part reveals the tactics used by the European and colonial elites in French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française) to preserve their influence. The Vichy legacy is examined in a final section, which provides both an overview of the situation in the empire as a whole and a detailed analysis of the telling example of Madagascar. This is a unique and highly innovative study by eminent historians of a little-known aspect of French colonial history during the Vichy period. Jacques Cantier is a lecturer at the University of Toulouse-Le-Mirail, France. He is the author of L'Algérie sous le régime de Vichy and Jules Roy: l'Honneur d'un rebelle. Eric Jennings is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is the author of Vichy in the Tropics.

Michel Offerlé
A History of France’s MEDEF Employers’ Association
Organisation, power structure, lobbies, secrets: a history of the Movement of French Enterprises (MEDEF)

Philippe Jurgensen
The Error of the West In the face of globalization
Philippe Jurgensen shows how the growing economic gap between North and South is responsible for four major threats that, in the short or long term, will endanger the small group of rich nations that possess three-quarters of the worlds wealth. These four threats demographics, health, the environment, strategy are each analysed in turn in a way that is accessible to non-specialists. Jurgensen shows that the current selfish attitude of the West is not only reprehensible but, above all, dangerous and therefore politically untenable. Philippe Jurgensen is a senior official of the French Treasury.

Pierre Buser
The Brain : Yours and Others
This book is both a careful review of the numerous debates that have stirred--and continue to stir--the cognitive sciences, and a personal essay. The author has tried to elaborate an original theory of psychic activity, based, on the one hand, on the cognitive conscious and the cognitive unconscious, and, on the other, on the cognitive unconscious and the affective unconscious. Pierre Buser, a former director of the Institut des neurosciences at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, is Professor Emeritus at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, and a member of the Académie des Sciences.

Mario Bettati
The International Struggle Against Terrorism
Terrorism and the anti-terrorist struggle appraised by an eminent European expert

Howard Gardner
Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed Educating for the Virtues in the Twenty-First Century
Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed is an approachable primer on the foundations of ethics in the modern age.

Jean-Pierre Changeux
The Life of Forms and the Forms of Life
Under the editorship of Jean-Pierre Changeux, a brilliant group of scientists and academics tackle the question of form

Jacques Lesourne, Denis Randet
The Research and Innovation in France FutuRIS 2013
The latest on research and innovation in France, described in the 2013 edition of FutuRIS’s annual opus

Daniel Sibony
From Identity to Existence The Jewish People’s Contribution
How the uniqueness of the Jewish people can help us all —Jews and non-Jews

Gisèle Gelbert
Speaking, Reading, Writing In Other Words
A completely original approach to aphasic language disorders...

Dominique Wolton
Forms of Indiscipline
A brilliant, authoritative synthesis of Dominique Wolton’s thought and work

Christian de Duve
Seven Lives in One Nobel Prize winner's Memoirs
The life of an exceptional Nobel Prize winner, from childhood to scientific recognition and acclaim

Pascal Picq
And at the Beginning there was Man...
In forty years, the genealogical tree of human evolution has grown so extensively that it now spans six million years. But fossils, the tree of evolution and the story they tell openly challenge all prevailing ideas about evolution; and though they have been shaken, these ideas have barely begun to change. In this book, Pascal Picq examines concrete, existing proof of our origins and then goes on to offer a new view of the human position in the evolutionary process. Pascal Picq is a senior lecturer in paleo-anthropology and prehistory at the Collège de France.

Gérard Bléandonu
What do our children dream ?
When does the foetus start to dream? What are its early dreams? What is the function of infant dreams? What is the impact of nightmares? How do dreams evolve during adolescence? Gérard Bléandonu brings to these questions his experience as a psychotherapist specialising in children suffering from psychological difficulties. The author also makes use of recent findings in neuro-physiology which have improved our understanding of dream mechanisms. Gérard Bléandonu is a psychiatrist and head of Child Psychiatry at the regional hospital of Savoie, France. He is the author of numerous works on child and adolescent psychiatry.

Jean-Claude Hazera
How Democracies Die Democracies now know they are mortal
How can one explain the fact that the greatest and the oldest democracies were able, in just a few weeks, sometimes in just a few days, to collapse?

Blaise Pierrehumbert
Attachment in 26 Questions foreword to Boris Cyrulnik
A book for the general reader to learn everything about attachment and understand its repercussions in our daily lives or in those of our children.

François Lévêque
Hyperpowerful Corporations Giants and Titans, the End of the Global Model
Why governments want to regain the upper hand over globalization

France Schott-Billmann
The Need to Dance
Village dances, the craze for Oriental and African dancing, the large number of rave parties - over the past few years, the joy of dancing seems to have been rediscovered in France. What does the desire to dance hide?

Joseph Rovan
Bismarck, Germany, and a United Europe 1898-1998-2098
1898-1998: the difference between these two dates is vast, and it is likely that the difference between 1989 and 2098 will be even sharper. This gives us even more reason to reflect on the actions of a man who was able to anticipate and incite change. Joseph Rovan has taught German studies at the French universities of Vincennes and Paris-III. He is the author of many books and articles, including France-Allemagne: Le Bond en Avant, with Jacques Delors and Karl Lamers, published by Editions Odile Jacob.

Jacques Delors
Education The Hidden Value Within
In this book, Delors specifies the educational objectives we should strive for: competence is vital, but it is equally necessary to prepare people to master knowledge, to teach themselves, to live together and, most simply, to be. We must invent and instill an approach to education that truly prepares men and women to take their own futures in hand, and such a feat implies not only economic efficiency, but also an adequate preparation for everyday life. Shouldn't the mastery of education be the next challenge taken up by the global community?

Yves Coppens
The Present of the Past 4 Pastilles of Prehistory
A lively introduction to the basics of Prehistory that is both informative and entertaining

Guillaume Cerutti
The Cultural Policy : A 21st Century Challenge Twenty Proposals
Though our certainties may waver as we move toward an uncertain economic and social future, culture remains for France an exceptional asset and a critical issue, both at home and internationally.

Boris Cyrulnik
Psychotherapy from God
Combining developmental psychology, attachment-based therapy, psycho-sociology, and the neurosciences, a psychotherapy of the sacred that takes into account all forms of belief, without distinction and without judgment, to analyse their foundations, their practices, their inner workings, and also their benefits. An original enlightening study of the major role played by attachment (secure or insecure) in religious feeling.

Jean-Claude Carrière
The Valley of Nothingness
An intimate reflection on universal questions, written with the finesse and intelligence we have come to know in Jean-Claude Carrière’s writing.







