Societal issues All books
Dominique Wolton
Forms of Indiscipline
A brilliant, authoritative synthesis of Dominique Wolton’s thought and work
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...
Maurice Tubiana
Education and Life
This book is a reflection on the alarming fact that France has the highest level of violent deaths (from suicide, drugs, and road accidents) in all Europe among young people between 18 and 22 years old. Tubiana analyses the pleasure principle which runs through our culture and our values, the Freudian principle that demands the immediate satisfaction of our impulses. This brings him to denounce postmodern individualism which does not make any room for the collective interest. Maurice Tubiana is a world-reknowned oncologist and member of the French Academy of Science and the Academy of Medicine.
Louis Crocq, Sophie Huberson, Benoît Vraie
Managing Crises
In the existence of any group, business or nation, a crisis is a serious, uncommon event that suddenly imposes an emergency situation and the management of the vital issues at stake.
Gilles Antonowicz
Sexual Crimes The Reponse of the Judiciary
What is the value of the testimony of a minor who declares having been sexually abused by a family member? What procedures does the judiciary follow to try to prevent the risk of a false allegation? The author explains and comments on the judicial procedure for these sensitive cases, which are often long, complex and very trying. The author goes on to ask if the time has not come to reconsider the status of the victim in these penal proceedings. Gilles Antonowicz is a lawyer specialising in cases concerning the sexual abuse of minors.
Françoise Benhamou
The Star-System Economy
We live in an age that spends fortunes on its stars. But why do we get the impression that the fees that stars receive and their popularity correspond less and less to their talent? Why does stardom seem to have so little to do with creativity and quality? Françoise Benhamou is an economist.
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.
Geneviève Bédoucha
Lunar Eclipse in Yemen An Anthropologist's Emotions and Feelings of Bewilderment
This is a fascinating approach by a woman of a tribal society in a mountain valley in northern Yemen, near the Saudi Arabian border. Partly a travel book and partly a journal of the author's fieldwork, it restores an anthropologist's unique first-hand experience, questionings, hesitations and discoveries, from the first moments spent in an unfamiliar village. There are few anthropological works on Yemen, and even fewer about private life in rural societies in the hinterland of the former Arab Republic of Yemen (the author's fieldwork dates from the 1980s, before reunification). At the time, the presence of a female anthropologist led both men and women to talk openly, often jokingly and provocatively, of male-female relations, and it seemed to encourage women to voice strong criticisms of male behaviour and privileges. The women's comments reveal them to be lucid independent thinkers, and not at all submissive. This book is an invitation to discover a little-known rural community at close quarters, and to penetrate the secret universe of Yemen's many-storied mud houses. It reveals relations between men and women in a closed, but curious and hospitable, Muslim Arab society. An anthropologist and research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Geneviève Bédoucha is a specialist in the relations between socio-political structures and irrigation systems in Arabic and Islamic societies.
Patrick Fridenson, Bénédicte Reynaud
France and the Age of Work (1814-2004)
In this history about working hours in France during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the authors present two highly original theses which go against some established ideas. Their first thesis is that the limitation or reduction of labour hours was not a political, social or economic issue but primarily a question of public health. The authors second thesis is that the movement for shorter hours was never a major demand of the trade unions since absenteeism served to regulate working hours but the policy of national and international institutions. This is a history book which responds to an impassioned issue in recent French political events. Patrick Fridenson is a historian. Bénédicte Reynaud is an economist.
