Societal issues All books
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.
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.
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.
Alain Bentolila
All about scholl
This is a brilliant, clearly argued demonstration of how the inability of the school system to evolve and develop a critical spirit may lead to the general failure of our entire society.
Alain Bentolila
Go to the Blackboard, Mr President In Defence of the Schools of the French Republic
The outcome of the French Presidential elections will be determined not only on economic and social issues but above all on educational ones
Léo Bersani
Homos Reassessing the Identity
What does it mean to be homosexual today ? Is it necessary to form communities and if so, why ? Is the primary aim equality in society such as it is, or the challenging of society itself ? Up to what point do homosexuals distinguish themselves ? Must there be a link between sexual claims and political dispute ? The gay and lesbian communities necessarily ask themselves these questions. On a wider scale, they also encourage a redefinition of the human being in contemporary societies. Already considered a classic in the United States, Homos presents an innovative, critical reflection on identity and the dangers in the withdrawal of a community from society. An expert in French literature, Leo Bersani is a professor at the University of California. He has notably published Baudelaire and Freud, and Theory and Violence.
Mario Bettati
The International Struggle Against Terrorism
Terrorism and the anti-terrorist struggle appraised by an eminent European expert
Nathalie Blanc
Animals in an Urban Environment
Those of you who live in an urban centre, do you think the rightful place of the animal is in the countryside ? Do you think that dogs are simply kept at the whim of lonely citizens ? That cats should not be allowed to roam the streets ? That there should be no more cockroaches to invade homes ? Yet, do you really want a city without nature ? Without green areas, but also without animals ? A sterilised city in other words.. Nathalie Blanc analyses here the role of the animal, and thus the living, in our urban societies. Nathalie Blanc is a researcher specialising in urban geography, at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
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.
Jean-Michel Blanquer
The School for the Future in France
A informed contribution to the debate on education and the university in this pre-election period. Selected and finely-drawn examples from around the world illustrate how these contradictions can be overcome: Stanford and Silicon Valley, Singapore University, the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne nd research, ESSEC and entrepreneurship, and more.
