Catalog All books
Paul Rabinow
French DNA: Trouble in Purgatory
This book offers some surprising viewpoints: an anthropologist tells the story of the human genome sequencing project; a scholar of the humanities follows the crisis between a French laboratory, the Centre dÉtude du Polymorphisme Humain (CEPH), and a U.S. rival; an American intellectual describes the politics within the French scientific community. This exceptional survey of the most recent research trends and of the state of international competition in the field of genetic research gives us a notion of how our future health care is being prepared. Paul Rabinow teaches anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Jacques Andréani
America and Us
Discussions about the U.S. tend to be heated, both in France and within America itself. To see this issue clearly, it is necessary to move away from a stereotypical vision, created by prejudice. What we notice immediately is the image of success and power, but also continuing tensions, unresolved dilemmas, and a problem in cooperating with the rest of the world. Politics, economy, religion, relations between individuals and communities, the law and the role of the judiciary, social and racial fragmentation : these are all themes dealt with in this book, with a view to ending misconceptions and to take us beyond the old Franco-American misunderstandings. Jacques Andréani was Frances ambassador to the United States from 1989 to 1995.
Jerome Kagan
Three Seductive Ideas
Do the first two years of a childs life really determine his or her future development? Are human beings, like other primates, solely motivated by the pursuit of pleasure? What can be concluded today about the notion of temperament? Is it stable and unchanging throughout life? This book is the culmination of a lifetime of research. Jerome Kagan, one of the founders of modern development psychology, is known the world over for the precision and originality of his work, as well as for his overall examination of the methods and meaning of psychology. Jerome Kagan teaches at Harvard University. He is the author of several works on psychology that are regarded as classics.
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.