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Stanislas Dehaene
A Good Head for Maths
Did you know that babies can count? And did you know that some animals can do simple arithmetic? Whether we possess astounding mathematical talents or the most basic of counting skills, we are all born with numerical intuition. In this book, the author describes some amazing scientific experiments that demonstrate the mental foundations of numerical intuition. If you want to know why you cant remember how much 7 x 8 makes, or how a cerebral lesion can make you forget 3 - 1, or if you want to figure out the fifth root of 759,375, just follow the author in a series of tortuous mental calculations and you dont even have to be a mathematical wizard. Stanislas Dehaene is a senior research fellow at Inserm and works at the Laboratory of cognitive sciences and of psycholinguistics at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, François Heisbourg
Strategic and Military Yearbook 2004
As the consequences of U.S. involvement in Iraq are making themselves felt worldwide, and as the U.S. presidential campaign comes to a climax, this book provides a timely survey of the changing strategic and geopolitical landscape. The articles included here, written by some of the top experts in their fields, evaluate the repercussions for all of us of developments in the world's most powerful nation; they also examine the so-called clash of civilisations and consider the real risks of such a clash. This is an indispensable, complete and informed book that will enable readers to understand present and future changes in the global situation. A veritable gold mine of information, the Annuaire stratégique et militaire provides an annual examination of France's defence situation and allows a comparison with France's partners. François Heisbourg, an internationally renowned specialist in international and defence issues, is the director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) and president of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. He is the author of Hyperterrorisme: la nouvelle guerre (2001) and the editor of Annuaire stratégique et militaire 2002 (English edition: French Strategic and Military Book) and Annuaire stratégique et militaire 2003, all published by Editions Odile Jacob.
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.
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.
