Catalog All books
Mario Bettati
The Right of Interference Transformation of International Order
Inventor of the "right of interference", Mario Bettati, a professor of International Law, explains in this book the precise political circumstances and the legal context under which the right of humanitarian interference came about. This book is divided into four parts which follow both a chronological and a logical order. Beginning with interference as verbal denunciation, following with interference as medical assistance, he speaks of forced interference (Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda) and finishes by dissuasive interference (courts for crimes against humanity and conflicts observatories). A thorough presentation of an important subject.
Marie-Jo Bonnet
What Does a Woman Desire when She Desires a Woman?
The desire of women for their own sex is a subject that has been concealed and heavily censored since Antiquity. Yet it has constantly resurfaced throughout history - despite repression, denial and today's feigned indifference - and its existence is a historical and anthropological fact, whatever the dominant opinion may say. Marie-Jo Bonnet argues that lesbianism transgresses social norms and female stereotypes, and breaks with the phallic model and the restricted social role that is assigned to women even today. She sees lesbian desire as a radical instrument of emancipation and offers an original analysis of the women's liberation movement, of recent discussions about homosexuality and, finally, of the persistence of lesbophobia. Desire, regardless of its subject, is always a unique and complex experience, and Bonnet does not ignore this fact. In an original, wide-ranging study of lesbian love through literature, she delves into the work of such major writers of the past as Marguerite Yourcenar, Violette Leduc, Simone de Beauvoir, Djuna Barnes and, surprisingly, Madame de Sévigné, as well as of more recent writers such as Monique Wittig, Anne Garreta and Christine Angot. The author's thesis is that women's desire for their own sex can serve as a tool to empower them to conquer their own space of creativity and liberation. Marie-Jo Bonnet, a writer and historian, is the author of Les Relations Amoureuses Entre Femmes (XVIe-XXe siècle).
Denis Le Bihan
The Crystal Brain The New Science of Neuroimaging
The latest findings about the brain, as revealed by the new science of neuroimaging
Alain Berthoz, Gérard Jorland
The Empathie
Empathy is the ability to put oneself in the position of others, and thus to understand and know them. Ever since Darwin, empathy has been regarded as the basis of all human social behaviour, and most notably of ethics. Some major psychological disorders - autism, for example - can be described as the inability to empathise. Certain types of perverse behaviour, such as the torture of defenceless victims, have been explained as distortions of empathy. This book offers an overview of studies on empathy for the past 250 years. It also describes the latest research on the subject in a variety of fields: cognitive psychology, philosophy, ethology and ethics. Alain Berthoz is a professor at the Collège de France and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He is the author of Le Sens du mouvement and La Décison, both published by Editions Odile Jacob. Gérard Jorland is a director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the author of Les Paradoxes du capital (Editions Odile Jacob) and La Science dans la philosophie.
Jean-Michel Severino, Olivier Ray
Social Issues on a Global Scale
Global interdependence has raised social issues to a central position in contemporary debate. But will we know how to deal with these issues?
Laurence Podselver
Hasidism: The Jews of France in the Face of Fundamentalism
Based on years of study, this unusual anthropological study, helps us understand the individual itineraries that explain why so many Jews...
André Miquel
The Event The Koran: Surate LVI
Translation and commentary of one of the most famous surates of the Koran, the fundamental book of Islam, that of The Event or "the key to the door of riches" which teaches of the gifts given to man by God. André Miquel is a professor at the Collège de France.
Daniel C. Dennett
Evolutionist theory of freedom
Billions of years ago, there was no freedom on earth, for the simple reason that there was no life. What forms of freedom have evolved since the first stirrings of life? Can freedom and free will exist in a deterministic universe? If we are free, are we responsible for our freedom, or is it governed by chance? Drawing on evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences, Daniel Dennett provides a series of unorthodox replies to these traditional philosophical questions. It is generally held that what is determined is inevitable and that freedom can only exist in a non-deterministic universe. This is untrue, says Dennett. It is also held that in a pre-determined universe, we have no real choices: all we have is the illusion that we can choose. This too is false, argues Dennett. He then goes on to explain how, some day, we will be able to create robots endowed with free will. In this groundbreaking book, written in a striking, lively style, Dennett interweaves philosophical creativity with the latest scientific developments, and challenges a series of philosophical orthodoxies. Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, Mass., U.S.A. He is the author of Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
Pierre Lévy
Cyberdemocracy
This book offers a synthesis of the various ways in which the advent of the Internet has transformed daily life in democratic societies, both on a regional and international level," writes Pierre Lévy. This ambitious and down-to-earth analysis is well served by Pierre Lévys style and prophetic vision. He has taken into account the latest and most innovative developments, as well as the political changes brought about by the new information society. Pierre Lévy, a philosopher, teaches at the University of Quebec, in Trois Rivières. He is the author of Cyberculture and World Philosophy.
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.
Gisèle Gelbert
Speaking, Reading, Writing In Other Words
A completely original approach to aphasic language disorders...
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.
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.
Mario Bettati
The International Struggle Against Terrorism
Terrorism and the anti-terrorist struggle appraised by an eminent European expert
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.