Human Sciences All books
Stephen Breyer
The Court and the World American Law and the New Global Realities
n this original, far-reaching, and timely book, Justice Stephen Breyer examines the work of the Supreme Court of the United States in an increasingly interconnected world, a world in which all sorts of activity, both public and private—from the conduct of national security policy to the conduct of international trade—obliges the Court to understand and consider circumstances beyond America’s borders.
Jean Guilaine
Women of the Past Images, myths and realities of the Neolithic woman
A book by one of the most renowned specialists of the protohistoric period, to help understand women’s place in the first sedentary societies of the Neolithic period.
Bertrand Roehner
Social cohesion
The methodology of physics is now being applied to the social sciences. Social cohesion, which assures social stability and continuity, is both observable and measurable. It may be observed in events that repeat: in test events such as the destruction of the mosque in Ayodhya, India (1992), and of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan (2001); in catastrophes such as the Great Fire of London (1666), the earthquakes and fires of San Francisco (1906) and Tokyo (1923); in the riots of rejection in Lawrence, Mass., U.S.A. (1984), and in Aigues-Mortes, France (1893); in the protest riots in Brixton, U.K. (1981); and in resistance to foreign occupation, as in France (1940). Social cohesion can be measured through the reactions of a given society in the aftermath of a shock: for example, in the number of Hindu temples that were burned down or mosques that were destroyed following the first two test events listed above. By borrowing the methods of physics, social scientists have been able to make predictions in their own field. Bertrand Roehner is a member of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics at Pierre et Marie Curie-University of Paris VII. He is the author of Un siècle de commerce du blé en France (Economica), Theory of Markets (Springer), Application of Physics in Economic Modelling, Pattern and Repertoire in History (Harvard University Press) and Separatism and Integration (Rowman and Littlefield).