Societal issues All books
Yves Michaud
Changes in Violence An Essay on Universal Goodwill and Fear
For better or for worse, violence has accompanied humanity throughout its history. It is consubstantial with history, technical knowledge and even culture, and it is unlikely that it will disappear. Human beings are inhabited by darkness great darkness and they must have the courage to confront it. Then why are we so frightened and shocked by each flare-up of violence on the international stage and in our own streets? We feel that there is both more and less violence; that life on our planet has become easier and yet more ruthless; that although benevolence is the universal law, hate is equally strong, if not stronger; that feeling safe may be a right but that fear reigns. Yves Michaud, a philosopher, teaches at the University of Paris-I.
Françoise Zonabend
The Nuclear Peninsula Three Mile Island, Tchernobyl, Fukushima... and after?
Twenty-five years after her first investigation, the author returns to the French nuclear site at La Hague — and finds it more dangerous than ever
Christine Delaporte
Telling Sick People the Truth
The issue of medical truth is perceived differently by doctors and patients. From the doctors point of view: Should a given patient be told the truth? Should terminally ill patients be told how much longer they may expect to live? From the patients point of view: How can I hear the truth and learn to live with the disease? This book should help health professionals deal with emotionally difficult moments of truth. It should also help patients and their loved ones to feel less alone, once they have heard the truth, and to gradually learn to live with their disease. Christine Delaporte is a head of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval, Pierre Verdier
Nobody's Child
Adoption and medically assisted procreations reflect the same suffering and ask the same questions. In both cases, the institution, in the name of a mistaken conception of filiation, weighs upon the children's head with an absolute secrecy as to its biological origins. The authors show in this book the consequences this secrecy has upon the psychology of children and parents.
Armand Laferrère
Political Reading of the Bible
The Bible is not just a spiritual treasure it is also a political manual for our times.
Anne-Françoise Chaperon, Bénédicte Litzler, Marie-Edith Alouf
Psychological Harassment in the Workplace
A complete, indispensable book to understand and identify psychological harassment — and learn to defend oneself
Jean-Claude Liaudet
The French Neurosis
A psychoanalyst examines France’s collective neurosis and asks: Can the patient be cured?
Alain Bauer, Marie-Christine Dupuis-Danon
The Bloodhounds: A Story of the French Intelligence Services in Their Own Words
Interviews with the great leaders in French Intelligence. These interviews break with a culture of secrecy; what the leaders say in no way glosses the difficulties, or the missteps, of the Services, or the manipulations that occur for reasons of high-level – or low-level – politics.
Mario Bettati
The International Struggle Against Terrorism
Terrorism and the anti-terrorist struggle appraised by an eminent European expert
Gisèle Gelbert
Speaking, Reading, Writing In Other Words
A completely original approach to aphasic language disorders...
Dominique Wolton
Forms of Indiscipline
A brilliant, authoritative synthesis of Dominique Wolton’s thought and work
Didier Houssin
Let’s Take Care of Science!
Well-written, eloquent, exhibiting great depth, the book is both an ode to science and a reflection on the recent tendency toward gigantism, encouraged primarily by Big Data.
Éric Dubreuil
Parents of the Same Sex
A growing number of gay men and women have founded families and are discovering the joys of parenting. It is estimated that there are approximately 500,000 families headed by parents of the same sex. They have brought the issue of homosexual parenting into the public arena, shattering traditional notions of the family and raising fundamental questions of filiation, adoption, and medically assisted procreation (artificial insemination, surrogate mothers) which go beyond the sphere of homosexuality and concern the future of our societyand therefore of all of us. Based on 29 interviews, including seven of children and teenagers, the book explores the little-known lives of same-sex-parent families.
Anasthasia Blanché
The Odyssey of Retirement: A Private and Collective Adventure
A sociologist’s point of view on a new phase of life that will concern ever-more people.
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.
Guillaume Cerutti
The Cultural Policy : A 21st Century Challenge Twenty Proposals
Though our certainties may waver as we move toward an uncertain economic and social future, culture remains for France an exceptional asset and a critical issue, both at home and internationally.
Serge Tisseron
The Benefits of the Image
Should sex and violence be banned on our television screens ? Is there a danger that their presence can lead to them becoming common-place, or to delinquency ? In light of this current debate, Serge Tisseron argues that as soon as we become accustomed to a type of image, and it ceases to upset us, we invent another type which will once more allow us to confuse image and reality, and thus to shiver again with fear and anxiety. In a society which is flooded with images, it is thus essential to use them as best we can, and to avoid the dangers that are inherent in them. This book aims to contribute to this end. Serge Tisseron is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, doctor of psychology and research fellow at the University of Paris-X. For the past fifteen years, he has worked on the relations that viewers have with different types of images.
Guy Groux, Michel Noblecourt, Jean-Dominique Simonpoli
Social Dialogue in France
Never has the potential for social dialogue been greater. Never has the law given so much autonomy to social partners...
Jean Picq
Religious Freedom in the French Republic Restoring the Spirit of French Secularism
‘Laïcité’ has been at the heart of numerous debates in France. The author argues here for a multifaceted, open secularism.
Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld, Robert Fraisse
The France of the Future
What will France be like in twenty years ? Faced with the fear of the future, with the current unease and confusion of French citizens, we need to change the way we look at things. We must stop asking ourselves about individualism in our society and look for answers to the mounting solitude. Stop theorizing about immigration problems and find the keys to demographic evolution. Stop fearing the invasion of the immaterial and start looking for the the new social fabric of tomorrow. We must suggest some possible plans of action and thought processes, provide some sketches of tomorrow's France, among the risks and hopes, to get some new perspectives.
France Schott-Billmann
The Need to Dance
Village dances, the craze for Oriental and African dancing, the large number of rave parties - over the past few years, the joy of dancing seems to have been rediscovered in France. What does the desire to dance hide?
Alain Bauer, Marie-Christine Dupuis-Danon
The Protectors An Inside History of the French Gendarmerie
Following Les Guetteurs [the Lookouts], the first history of French Intelligence as told by its heads, here is Les Protecteurs, the inside history of the National Gendarmerie.
Philippe Moati
The Sick Hyperconsumer Society
Hyperconsumption undermines social cohesion and “living together”
Anne Muxel
The Other at a Distance When a Pandemic Affects Intimacy
A sociological analysis that looks in depth at the upheavals brought about by the pandemic that have affected the intimate side of our existence and our relationships with others.
Florence Burgat
The Animal, My Relation
On one hand, men exploit, manipulate and slaughter animals. On the other hand, they let animals interfere with their lives, pollute them, and sometimes dominate them. Since the classical Age, Man has sought to define himself in his opposition to animals. Claiming for himself the most noble faculties - consciousness, thought, esthetic sense, morality - he represses his own animal side, notably his sexuality. But Florence Burgat goes beyond this negative statement. She walks in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's steps, claiming that men, like animals are sensitive beings, liable to suffer. On this basis, she proposes a new morality. Florence Burgat is a philosopher, and works at the Laboratory of Social Anthropology of the College of France.