Catalog All books
Mario Bettati
International Environmental Law
An indispensable book for students, diplomats and activists faced with attacks on the environment
Françoise Benhamou
The Star-System Economy
We live in an age that spends fortunes on its stars. But why do we get the impression that the fees that stars receive and their popularity correspond less and less to their talent? Why does stardom seem to have so little to do with creativity and quality? Françoise Benhamou is an economist.
Robert Dautray
Quelles énergies pour demain ?
If there is such a thing as a French exception, it is in matters of energy. Lacking natural energy resources, France has developed a vast electro-nuclear programme which not only guarantees the country's political independence but also produces budget surpluses. Since the existing electro-nuclear equipment is not everlasting, and must thus be renewed, the question of the total dependence on nuclear energy has arisen once again. This book, by one of the most influential French scientists of the post-war period, is an in-depth analysis of the country's energy system and its problems, and the prospects for future development. The author begins by an examination of production methods by major categories (oil and natural gas, coal, hydraulic energy, solar energy, biomass, nuclear energy, geothermal energy, wind, renewable energy, bioenergy, thermonuclear energy). He then describes the role that energy plays in our society, and how society reacts to energy problems. He concludes that present and future citizen-consumers should be placed at the centre of all discussions about energy methods, that consumers should be satisfied and respected and that their opinions should be considered. But this, he says, is exactly the opposite of what has happened up to now. The last part of the book, which deals with scientific and technical research, tries to answer the questions: What should be done? What actions should be undertaken? Time is running out and irreparable harm is being done to the environment. How much time is left to discover and develop the new procedures that will enable us to save what may still be salvaged? As was amply illustrated by the heatwave of 2003, the environment remains a crucial issue. In this important book, the author has had the courage to urge scientists and experts to step out of their ivory tower, to meet with citizens, and to provide for their needs. And he takes the risk of outlining some highly specific measures to be undertaken in the next ten years. Robert Dautray is an engineer and physicist at the French Atomic Energy Commission and a member of the Academy of Sciences.
Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld
The 3 Cultures of Human Development Resistance, Regulation, Utopia
Today, economic growth has taken off again, creating jobs and making full employment a feasible goal. And yet, at a time when we seem to be at the brink of a new recession, nothing seems to have really changed. Modernisation may exclude fewer members of our society than had been previously feared, but, if we are not careful, their exclusion will be all the greater. It is no longer possible to retain a soft procedural approach to democracy. Democracy needs to return to its origins; it must be given a goal, based on a strong vision of humanity and of humanity as part of society. It is necessary to construct human development along the lines of three political and spiritual cultures which represent our common heritage : resistance, regulation and utopia. Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld is a senior official in the French Treasury. Until 1995 he was a commissioner of Frances economic plan. He is active in numerous think-tanks and associations that struggle against social exclusion and unemployment.
Robert Rochefort, Dominique Voynet
The Environment - A Social Question The Result of Ten Years of Research for the Environmental Ministry
This book collects 31 contributions from sociologists, legal experts, economists, and philosophers. All of these reflections point to two major motifs: that of a durable association between economy and ecology, and that of the principle of precaution necessary in and for future generations.
Hubert Montagner
The Child : The Real Question of Education
This ambitious work aims to provide a comprehensive view of the mechanisms, processes, influences, factors, and past and present events that may keep children from constructing, structuring or mobilising their abilities in an academic environment, and from acquiring new abilities and successfully constructing the required learning skills. In the struggle against academic failure, the main tool is understanding the child better. In order to do this, it is essential to base educational practice on the most recent knowledge.
Geneviève Bédoucha
Lunar Eclipse in Yemen An Anthropologist's Emotions and Feelings of Bewilderment
This is a fascinating approach by a woman of a tribal society in a mountain valley in northern Yemen, near the Saudi Arabian border. Partly a travel book and partly a journal of the author's fieldwork, it restores an anthropologist's unique first-hand experience, questionings, hesitations and discoveries, from the first moments spent in an unfamiliar village. There are few anthropological works on Yemen, and even fewer about private life in rural societies in the hinterland of the former Arab Republic of Yemen (the author's fieldwork dates from the 1980s, before reunification). At the time, the presence of a female anthropologist led both men and women to talk openly, often jokingly and provocatively, of male-female relations, and it seemed to encourage women to voice strong criticisms of male behaviour and privileges. The women's comments reveal them to be lucid independent thinkers, and not at all submissive. This book is an invitation to discover a little-known rural community at close quarters, and to penetrate the secret universe of Yemen's many-storied mud houses. It reveals relations between men and women in a closed, but curious and hospitable, Muslim Arab society. An anthropologist and research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Geneviève Bédoucha is a specialist in the relations between socio-political structures and irrigation systems in Arabic and Islamic societies.