Human Sciences All books
Daniel Sibony
Islam, Phobia, Guilt
The uneasy relations between Islam and the West, analysed by the psychoanalyst Daniel Sibony
Daniel Sibony
A Radical Love Belief and Identity
An original analysis of the relationships between religions, between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Key concepts in psychoanalysis applied to religions: denial, repressions, impulses, illusions.
Monique Sicard
The Making of the Image
It was during the Renaissance that images and pictures were first used by anatomists, microscopists, and astronomers as scientific tools. In that era, scientific images served as a kind of inventory of the known world. In the 19th century, the popularization of scientific ideas gave science a new vigor. Photographic images gave science a new reality, explaining and legitimizing scientific concepts--movement, for example--to a fascinated public. In our days, the scientific image is often a construction--helping us to represent objects and ideas that, like fractals or black holes, cannot be defined through actual observation. Monique Sicard is Projects Director at CNRS Images Média.
Jean-François Sirinelli
Life and Survival of the Fifth Republic An Essay on Political Physiology
A work of reflection on institutions, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and the reason for their endurance.
Giulia Sissa
The Soul is a Feminine Being
Do women have a soul ? Philosophers have historically doubted this, refusing to accord women rationality. However, at the same time, they have been unable to imagine the soul without the help of feminine metaphors : the soul conceives, it is pregnant with knowledge, it gives birth in pain and distress but always with the help of someone. In reading classic texts such as Derrida, and deconstructing them while drawing comparisons with others and focusing on what may seem paradoxical, such as the many Freudian slips, Giulia Sissa leads us to interrogate ourselves on the exclusively feminine attributes of the Western soul. A radical questioning of the difference between the sexes which leads us to the most profound aspects of our culture.
Ludovic Slimak
Neanderthal Uncovered
Neanderthal Man as he truly was; an innovative and enthralling book, which takes us on a journey through space and time with our “human brother.”
Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont
Intellectual Impostures
In spring 1996, a American journal published an article in which the author Alan Sokal, supported his ideas with quotations from famous intellectuals, both French and American...
Sébastien Soriano
The Future of Public Service
A decisive contribution to thinking about the sovereignty of society in the face of the era of networks and the digital world.
David Spector
History of the Market Concept in France
An original point of view which runs counter to received ideas: the concept of the market is in a blind spot of leftist thinking, or even that of the French intellectual tradition. This book should be part of the debate as it provides historical insight on a crucial point of current disunity within the left and on its future.
Manès Sperber
Being Jewish
A non-practicing Jew, Manès Sperber learned to read the Bible at the age of three and continued to re-read it until the end of his life. Neither religious, nor a militant Zionist, nor an aethiest, nor aligned with any cultural Judaism, he professes as his only faith a "religion of good memory." His is a Judaism lived as humanism and as an ethic, as a refusal of all idolatry, of exclusion of others, and a constant combat against hate of any kind. It is a profound attachment to the Israelite nation and a prudent attitude towards the State of Israel that Sperber illustrates in these brilliant essays prefaced by Elie Weisel, where analysis of Jewish thought and identity walk hand in hand with the eternal question: Why anti-semitism?
Dan Sperber
The Infectiousness of Ideas
Where do our ideas come from ? Some, just from ourselves, or at least we believe so, but the majority come from others which we then pass on in our turn. The age-old philosophical question on the origins of ideas is analysed here in relation to their mode of dissemination. In his search for the natural element of culture, Dan Sperber presents in this book an epidemiology of ideas which describes how they spread by passing from one person to another, undergoing transformations which are in the same category as mutations. He also investigates how these ideas establish themselves in the long-term by occupying our mental world without our conscious knowledge, which allows us to participate in our culture. Dan Sperber, an anthropologist, is the research director of CNRS.
Hugo Mercier , Dan Sperber
The Enigma of Reason
Ambitious, provocative, fascinating, this book gives readers resources to rethink their own way of thinking.
Alexandre Stern
Monkeys in the Kitchen How Cooking Made Us Human
How the invention of culinary and agricultural practices, the discovery and exchange of products, through the millennia have contributed to civilizing the human being.
Alexandre Stern
Who Are You, Homo sapiens? Understanding Our Nature In Order to Live Better
After telling how the art of cooking had humanized, civilized our ancestral apes, Alexandre Stern explores the roots of our humanity to better examine our modern practices and ways of life.
Christian Stoffaës
Ends of Worlds
An economic pulse sustains life in the modern world. C. Stoffaës investigates the highs of economic boom and the lows of paralyzing depression. He presents an historical survey of our dominant technological and mental structures from Keynes to Schumpeter, from the steam engine to the microchip, from the American golden age to the new Pacific prosperity.
Christian Stoffaës
Public Services A Question of the Future
French public services need to be modernised. In their present position, they incarnate the Welfare State and its grand projects. They are now being challenged by the opening up of the market, the fall of the controlled economy, deregulation, and privatisations. An open economy now rules the network industries, such as energy, transport, telecommunications, and collective services. Can we really just leave isolated and without a future this cornerstone of our society which represents all at once the infrastructure of the competitive economy, great technical achievements, the republican conception of social equality and the cohesion of the country ? A result of the reflections of the Network Plan 2010 group, led by Christian Stoffaës, the director of the company Elecricité de France, this work identifies the currents of change, assesses the situation in other countries, and traces an outline of a significant project to reform the State. In co-edition with La Documentation française.
Jean-Pierre Sueur
Changing the City For a New Urbanity
Twenty years after France introduced its urban policy, the situation in the cities leaves much to be desired. Widespread problems include insecurity, violence, inequality, unemployment, pollution, poor housing or housing in hideously ugly tower blocks, traffic jams, and the emergence of ghettos. The author gives a critical reading of the various remedial urban policies introduced during the past few years and points to ways in which the underlying causes of todays urban problems may finally be confronted, so as to ultimately and truly change our cities. Jean-Pierre Sueur, a former government minister and member of Parliament, is the mayor of Orleans.
Ezra Suleiman, Yasmina Jaïdi, Frank Bournois
The French Prowess Management, French-style
More than 2,500 foreign executives from 20 CAC 40 companies were interviewed for this broad survey of French management. The extent of this analysis is the key to the richness of the book. Concrete advice for executives and directors of human resources to improve their management style.
Alain Supiot
Solidarity An Enquiry Into a Legal Principle
A thorough enquiry into the meaning and future of the legal principle of solidarity
Didier Tabuteau
Health as Political Model
This exemplary X-ray of French healthcare argues for a total overhaul of the system
Pierre-André Taguieff
Philo-Semitism Is Philo-Semitism an Antisemitism?
The ambiguities surrounding the Jewish question emanating from intellectuals and so-called “philo-semititic” personalities are closely analyzed here, in light of ever more troubling current events. A strong and disturbing book.
Maurice Taieb, Doris Barboni
Once Upon a Time There Was Lucy
The discovery of Lucy told to children by one of her historic discoverers. Illustrations by Cécile Gambini.