Societal issues All books
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.
Alain Peyrefitte
The Economic "Miracle"
The 20th century has been marked by the growing awareness of the unbearable gap between developed and under-developed countries. And the most outstanding fact of the next century will probably be the worsening in this imbalance. In order to find a solution to the under-development scandal, Alain Peyrefitte attempts to understand the miracle of development. He examines the successive miracles which have allowed a part of humanity to pull through the turns of dictatorship or anarchism, violence and destitution.
Ricardo Bofill, Nicolas Véron
Urban Architecture
What is there in common between all my designs ? What meaning can I give today to my architecture ? Without doubt, that of a desire to organise space. Due to an apprenticeship in perception, observation, and geometrisation of nature, in addition to a historical journey, I have learnt that in order to go past the initial momentum, I have to acquire the mastery of a whole new language." Ricardo Bofill Ricardo Bofill is probably one of the most famous, yet most controversial architects of his time. In this book illustrated with pictures and plans, he delivers an analysis of his art which amounts to an invitation to read the city.
Claude Olievenstein
Written in the Mouth
"The mouth is beautiful. Everything starts with the mouth, from the first scream to the first sucking, from the first love kiss to the last farewell kiss. It is possible to view it only as an obscure hole or a devouring machine. It becomes more difficult when, from the labial to the short syllabe, it shapes itself as an instrument for language or music. Then, new questions are raised, especially regarding its relation to the cerebral systems." Claude Olievenstein
José Moraïs
The Art of Reading
José Moraïs analyzes the different methods with which we learn to read and presents the various therapeutic possibilities offered to those who do not master the art of reading .
Christian Jacob
The Key to Fields Agriculture is no longer what you think
Is our agriculture moribund and our farmers condemned? Not necessarily. Christian Jacob's work tells the story of the path taken by a young farmer, while taking a critical look at both French and European agricultural politics and the snares of GATT. He argues that, rather than protect the rural world, it is necessary above all to help modernize it by providing methods that allow for increased income and sharpened competiveness. Christian Jacobs was the President of the Centre National des Jeunes Agriculteurs. He is currently a deputy in the European Parliament.
Jean-Louis André
At the Heart of Urbanity
What should be done about neglected suburbs, the bedroom towns, dehumanized, and deregulated ? When we are faced with buildings in ruins, with wasteland and concrete deserts ? The answer is to stop trying to fix the obvious defects of these surburbs and instead concentrate on the heart of the town, in the common space, which must take on the changes made and symbolise an identity. Jean-Louis André, graduate of the Ecole normale supérieure, is a journalist. He has notably published with Ricardo Bofill, The Spaces of A Life.
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?
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.
Irène Théry
From Marriage to Divorce Justice and Private Life
Can dual parental responsibility outside marriage be recognized as a principle by law? I. Théry believes that all controversies on divorce are basically debates on marriage. Our representations of the relationships between the individual and society, the private and public realms, are destabilized in this insecure period of unmarriage . The psycho-social drift of justice increases further when we consider the true sufferers of divorce court battles: the children.
Étienne-Émile Baulieu
The Generation of the Pill
After meeting Gregory Pincus, the inventor of the pill, E. Baulieu, a young researcher and hormone specialist, found himself at the heart of one of society s most burning controversies: contraception. This is his story; his own contribution to contraception, RU 486, the first contragestive pill, and his reflections on the ethical debate it provoked.