Human Sciences All books
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.
Régis Debray, Jean Bricmont
In the Shadow of Lights A Debate between a Philisopher and a Scientist
What is the meaning for us today of the Enlightenment? Of positivism and of the social sciences? How should we envision the revolutions in physics, biology and the neorosciences? What are the future roles of ideology and politics, faced with the challenge of the present religious come-back? Is the notion of progress still relevant? Can a fundamental, universal anthropology be established? In their discussions, the authors Debray from a literary point of view, and Bricmont from a scientific one meet, confront and defy each other. In the course of their talks, they summon theory and practice, past and present, history and current events, facts and their own personal convictions, to give the reader a brilliant lesson against the dominant mood of nihilism. Régis Debray heads the European Institute of the History and Science of Religion. He is the author of numerous works, including God, An Itinerary. Jean Bricmont teaches theoretical physics at the University of Louvain. He is the co-author with Alan Sokal of Intellectual Impostures.
Herbert Lottman
The Committed Writer and his Ambivalences From Chateaubriand to Malraux
By definition, a committed writer is a well-known one who puts the respect and admiration his name has accrued in the service of a cause. But is it really that simple? Is political commitment only a matter of principles? Isnt it also driven by a quest for celebrity? Described here are the stratagems adopted by some of the greatest figures in the French literary pantheon of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as they faltered between a quest for purity and the desire for personal glory. Herbert Lottman is a renowned biographer.
Fareed Zakaria
The Future of Freedom
Is it really so that more democracy leads automatically to more freedom ? Why, in the four corners of the world, are we now seeing an increased capacity for religion to mobilise the people ? Why, in Europe as in the United States, do we have minorities and oligarchies reigning in the name of the people ? Why has there been an increase in the number of regimes which are born from the polling booth, yet which exalt fanaticism, repression and war ? A dazzling world tour of the geo-political horizon, and also a lesson in modern and contemporary history, which we lead us to reexamine our own prejudices. Fareed Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International and was formerly the managing director of the review Foreign Affairs.
Janine Thibault
The Air We Breathe
What is air? What is pollution? Whether with regard to the atmosphere, the effects of pollutants, or the weather, teachers will find in this book elementary theoretical information on air, and the essential foundation needed to instruct their pupils with a civic-minded, and preventive attitude to the air they breathe.