Human Sciences All books

Philippe Descola
Claude Lévi-Strauss, A Journey Through the Century
Eminent specialists on Claude Lévi-Strauss, his disciples and intellectual heirs, from Brazil, Canada, France and the U.S., give us a wide-ranging view of every facet of the works and thought of the author...

Paul Bernard
In the Name of the Republic
"Being a prefect is to do a job that comes with demands and responsibilities which are often not recognised. It is equally to accept a mission - that of representing the Republic. It is also adapting to the contradictions of the modern world." Paul Bernard Paul Bernard, a legal expert, has had a long prefectoral career which took him to various regions of France, including Aveyron, Sarthe and Corsica, before becoming the prefect of Rhône-Alpes and president of the Association du Corps Préfectoral et des Haut Fonctionnaires du Ministère de lIntérieur.

Jacques Lesourne, Denis Randet
Research and Innovation in France FutuRIS 2011
With a view to the 2011 French presidential elections, here are a series of proposals that offer the middle classes the future perspectives they deserve

Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld
The 3 Cultures of Human Development Resistance, Regulation, Utopia
Today, economic growth has taken off again, creating jobs and making full employment a feasible goal. And yet, at a time when we seem to be at the brink of a new recession, nothing seems to have really changed. Modernisation may exclude fewer members of our society than had been previously feared, but, if we are not careful, their exclusion will be all the greater. It is no longer possible to retain a soft procedural approach to democracy. Democracy needs to return to its origins; it must be given a goal, based on a strong vision of humanity and of humanity as part of society. It is necessary to construct human development along the lines of three political and spiritual cultures which represent our common heritage : resistance, regulation and utopia. Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld is a senior official in the French Treasury. Until 1995 he was a commissioner of Frances economic plan. He is active in numerous think-tanks and associations that struggle against social exclusion and unemployment.

Christian de Perthuis, Pierre-André Jouvet
Green Capital
The indispensable book to understand the green economy and boost economic growth

Jean-Pierre Changeux
The Natural Foundations of Ethics
Is the sense of morality universal, is it inherent to human nature? The members of this symposium gathered around Jean-Pierre Changeux ponder the diversity of moralities and question themselves about the conflicts due to cultural differences and the possibility of attaining a common morality which would be intrinsic to human nature.

Claude Fischler, Véronique Pardo
Special Diets
In many countries, restrictive diets are changing individual eating habits — and profoundly altering the way we relate to one another.

Laurent Bègue-Shankland
The Psychology of Good and Evil
How our idea of morality builds on and informs our personal life and our relationships

Mario Bettati
International Environmental Law
An indispensable book for students, diplomats and activists faced with attacks on the environment

Christine Tardieu
How We Become Bipeds The Wolf-Child Myth
A history of how and why humans are the only mammals that permanently adopted bipedalism.

Claude Hagège
Against Uniform Thinking
The threat of uniform thinking, relayed notably through the English language, should lead us to react in defence of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Yves Coppens
Pretexts
In these short essays, Yves Coppens makes us discover the most recent findings in prehistory. A masterly lesson.

Robert Boyer
General Theory of Capitalism is it possible?
Robert Boyer is a leading figure of the regulationist school of economics, which believes that capitalism requires external, political, monetary and social regulations, and that the capitalist economy cannot be reduced to the self-regulating laws of the market. In this book, he proposes a general theory of capitalism, from two angles. First of all, he argues that there are several models of capitalism - not just one. America's ultra-liberal capitalism is unlike German capitalism, which is characterised by the fusion between banks and businesses, just as it is unlike French state-interventionist capitalism and Japan's capitalism of consensus. Secondly, in order to understand how capitalism works, every aspect has to be considered - not just the market but also political and social institutions (the State, central banks, unions, etc.) and the conventions they create among themselves (salary agreements, etc.). Robert Boyer is a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, a director of studies at the Ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales and a member of the French prime minister's Council for Economic Analysis.

Lionel Naccache
On Being a Subject in Oneself The Talmudic Experience of Spirituality
What does it mean to be oneself? What does it mean to believe? An exploration of the neuroscience and philosophy of subjectivity

Thierry Lodé
Why Animals Cheat and Make Mistakes
A brilliant contribution to evolutionary biology and to the study of animal behaviour, written in a lively, vivid style

Daniel Sibony
Islam, Phobia, Guilt
The uneasy relations between Islam and the West, analysed by the psychoanalyst Daniel Sibony

Dominique Rousseau
The Fifth French Republic Is Dying! Long Live Democracy!
The First French Republic was consular, the Second was presidential, the Third and Fourth were parliamentary, but the Fifth seems to have no distinguishing qualities.