Catalog All books
Michel Cassé
Nothingness and Creation
This book is foremost a piece of scientific popularization. M. Cassé leads us on an historical stroll through physics. First we meet the ideas of Galileo and Newton. Then Einstein modifies the classical notions of time and space. Finally quantum mechanics revolutionize our sense of matter. On a deeper level, Cassé sees physics as an arena for debate on the nature of reality. This is why scientific discourse often tends toward reverie and poetic meditation, particularly when concerning itself with the void, a central notion for modern physics and the complex protagonist of Cassé's scientific journey.
François Godement
The Renaissance of Asia
How can the dynamism of modern Asia be explained ? Is there a unified Asian identity which could point to subsequent unification ? What is the role of the State, and the future of democracy in Asia ? François Godement presents one of the first major histories of the contemporary Far East in which he not only traces the recent history of the continent, but also reveals the future for occidental societies. François Godement is a professor at the Institute of Eastern Languages and head of research at the French Institute for International Relations.
François Lelord
The Tales of an Ordinary Psychiatrist
Visiting a psychiatrist is still a frightening prospect. Taboos surround psychological illnesses and psychiatry is viewed with suspicion. Using true cases as examples, F. Lelord presents the expressions and mechanisms of various psychological problems: stress, agoraphobia, depression, bulimia, anorexia, schizophrenia, autism... With each case we dive further into the psyche, and emerge with an honest assessment of the pluses and minuses of psychiatric treatment.
Jean-Marie Bourre
From the Animal to the Plate
Traditionally, meat was the basis of our meals. Today it has become the object of dietary resentment: too much fat, too rich, too heavy... Yet meat contains proteins essential to a healthy existence. J.-M. Bourre joins the search for meat replacements, exploring the riches of the sea, the ressources found in vegetal proteins, innovative cooking techniques, and recent changes in breeding.
Pierre Jaisson
The Ant and the Sociobiologist
What are the advantages of social organization? P. Jaisson, a sociobiologist, explains how among animals as various as ants, bees, tadpoles and rats, certain altruistic behavior is dependent on a recognized social order. The generalizations fostered by these findings and their application to the human speces are a source of violent debate and moral questioning. Jaisson provides an honest look at the ideological exploitation born of sociobiological study.
Irène Théry
From Marriage to Divorce Justice and Private Life
Can dual parental responsibility outside marriage be recognized as a principle by law? I. Théry believes that all controversies on divorce are basically debates on marriage. Our representations of the relationships between the individual and society, the private and public realms, are destabilized in this insecure period of unmarriage . The psycho-social drift of justice increases further when we consider the true sufferers of divorce court battles: the children.
Ernst Mayr
One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Questions of Science)
Without Darwin, our knowledge of the living would not be what it is today. But who was really the author of The Origin of Species? Why did these hypotheses lead to one of the most important scientific revolutions of our time? To what questions was Darwin unable to find an answer? Ernst Mayr is a professor emeritus at Harvard University.