Catalog All books
Claudine Monteil
Simone de Beauvoir Today
The author evokes her long friendship with Simone de Beauvoir and offers a detailed portrayal of women’s lives today.
Françoise Salomon
Silent Child The Story of a Schizophrenic
This largely autobiographical book recounts the story of a family brutally shaken their sons violence and mental illnessthough nothing had previously seemed to distinguish him from other teenagers. It is a highly moving chronicle of the world of schizophrenia which remains little known by the general public. The mother of a schizophrenic child, Françoise Salomon is an active member of the French Union nationale des amis et des familles des malades mentaux.
Lionel Naccache
The Sign Song
An essay illuminated by neuroscience, which aims to explore the psychological and cerebral cogs involved in the act of interpretation, which we are not generally aware of. A petition or manifesto in favour of defending our subjectivity and individuality, at a time when ever more efficient, air-tight and uniform signage tends to make us lose track of the fact that we are the inventors of our own understanding of the world’s signs.
Philippe Moati
The Sick Hyperconsumer Society
Hyperconsumption undermines social cohesion and “living together”
Stella Baruk
Si 7 = 0. Quelles mathématiques pour l'école ?
Stella Baruk is known for her uncompromising criticism of the way mathematics is taught at school. She sees children's frequent aversion to the subject as a clear demonstration of the failure of current methods. Following her earlier book, L'Age du Capitaine, in which she denounced the meaningless mathematical problems that children were burdened with and enjoined to solve, she now addresses the difficulties encountered by the new generation of the captain's children. She has reproduced pages from the exercise books of primary school pupils, with a commentary underlining the confusion created by modern maths in the minds of children who are not yet familiar with mathematics. Her message is clear: the fault lies not in modern maths, but in the fact that the cart has been put before the horse. Modern maths was created to generalise operations and structures that recur in every aspect of mathematics, and modern maths cannot be correctly understood without the full mastery of those operations and structures. Yet, the teaching of mathematics has been turned on its head, with the abstract being taught before the concrete and the general before the specific - with the result that empty formalism is all that is being passed on. Baruk's very precise analyses, illustrated with specific examples, will help parents understand their children's mistakes and difficulties, so that they can help them overcome them. Stella Baruk is a mathematics teacher and pedagogical researcher.
Gérard Macqueron, Stéphane Roy
Shyness
Everyone experiences some form of shyness. Who can honestly say that they have never been intimidated? In this book, the authors offer a step-by-step programme to help readers understand their own shyness and learn to overcome it, by identifying and acting on problem situations, emotions, behaviour and thoughts. Numerous tools can serve to make communication easier: knowing how to listen, learning to make conversation, and learning to assert oneself. In addition, there is a section devoted to shyness among children and teenagers. The method of self-therapy described here has been scientifically tested and shown to be particularly effective in overcoming shyness. Gérard Macqueron is a psychiatrist at Hôpital Sainte-Anne, in Paris, and at the Clinique du Château, in Garches, near Paris. He is a consultant in career-stress management with Patrick Légeron, at Stimulus. Stéphane Roy is a psychologist and psychotherapist at the medical-psychiatric centre in Garches.
Patrick Berche
Should We Still Be Afraid of the Flu?
The fascinating history of influenza, from the Middle Ages to the recent reappearance of a virus that had been vanquished
Pierre Bey, Jean-Pierre Gérard, Martin Schlumberger
Should We Fear Radioactivity?
A clear, precise and uncompromising account of radioactivity, its dangers and advantages
Nicolas Offenstadt
Shot at Dawn : The Executed of the Great War And the Collective Memory (1914-1999)
Why were some soldiers tried and executed by their own military authorities during World War I? Using previously unpublished source material, the author has been able to throw light on one of the most sombre episodes of the Great War. Besides reviewing the history of the events themselves, the author also examines the struggle with the military authorities to clear the soldiers names, beginning in the period between the two world wars. By the 1960s, the public image of the executed soldiers had begun to change. It would culminate in the British campaign to grant them an official pardon and in the French decision to remember them a ceremony. How, he asks, did these changes come about? Nicolas Offenstadt is a graduate of the Institut des Etudes Politiques, in Paris. He holds an agrégation in history and is a member of the Thiers Foundation.
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Beda Romano
The Short-Term View Conversations About the Big Crash
A leading figure in Italian and European politics and economics provides a critical synthesis of the conduct that led to the crash, and suggests paths to be explored to mould new thinking in economics.
Roland Trompette, Daniel Nahon
Short Stories of the EarthAnd Universe
The mysteries of planet Earth revealed in 37 lively accessible chapters
Pierre Vermeren
Shock of Decolonisation from 1962 to the present
The failure of French decolonisation, and government cowardice in the face of recent violence