Examines the author of one of the most unsettling books of the 1960s, revealing the life and legacy of the multitalented Fanon, who worked as a writer, psychiatrist, propagandist, and ambassador.

The one emotion that matters most to many people is the one about which social thinkers rarely speak - love. For many people, love is the thing that matters most in their lives: they are searching for love, hoping to find in love a kind of happiness that they cannot find in their work or by surrounding themselves with material goods. But where does this peculiar and powerful blending together of love and happiness come from, and why do we find it such a compelling idea today? In this short book Jean-Claude Kaufmann offers a fresh account of the history of a feeling unlike any other. The modern idea of love as passion was born in the 12th century but it was marginalized by the rise of a kind of instrumental, calculating reason that became increasingly central to modern societies. As calculating reason began to encroach on the personal domain, many individuals sought to escape from it, searching for happiness elsewhere. As our societies become dominated by calculating reason and selfish individualism, we search elsewhere for the kind of happy love that will heal all our wounds. This is why we experience so many changes of heart in our personal lives: at times we are coldly calculating and then, a few moments later, we sacrifice ourselves to love without a second thought. Written by one of France’s leading sociologists, this highly readable book sheds new light on love and happiness and will resonate with many readers.

Most of us who live in the North and the West consume far too much– too much meat, too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt.We are more likely to put on too much weight than to go hungry. Welive in a society that is heading for a crash. We are aware of whatis happening and yet we refuse to take it fully into account. Aboveall we refuse to address the issue that lies at the heart of ourproblems – namely, the fact that our societies are based onan economy whose only goal is growth for growth’s sake. Serge Latouche argues that we need to rethink from the veryfoundations the idea that our societies should be based on growth.He offers a radical alternative – a society of‘de-growth’. De-growth is not the same thing asnegative growth. We should be talking about ‘a-growth’,in the sense in which we speak of ‘a-theism’. And we doindeed have to abandon a faith or religion – that of theeconomy, progress and development—and reject the irrationaland quasi-idolatrous cult of growth for growth’s sake.While many realize that that the never-ending pursuit of growthis incompatible with a finite planet, we have yet to come to termswith the implications of this – the need to produce less andconsume less. But if we do not change course, we are heading for anecological and human disaster. There is still time to imagine,quite calmly, a system based upon a different logic, and to planfor a ‘de-growth society’.

The publication in English of Serge Moscovici's Psychoanalysis, ItsImage and Its Public is an event of singular importance for socialpsychology. For the first time, English-speaking readers will haveaccess to one of the most influential books published in thediscipline in the past 30 years. Moscovici's development of the theory of social representations haslong been recognised as a major contribution to social psychology,but discussion of the theory has been limited been by theunavailability in English of the text in which he provides his mostextensive presentation of the theory and demonstrates its fecunditythrough his empirical study of representations of psychoanalysis inFrance. Psychoanalysis is in many ways the founding text of thetheory of social representations and is, as such, a modern classic.As well as tracing the ways in which knowledge of psychoanalysis istransformed as it is reconstructed by different social groups inFrench society, Moscovici provides an extensive analysis of therepresentations of psychoanalysis within the mass media, showinghow different interests structure such communication through thedifferent forms of propaganda, propagation and diffusion. This book will be an indispensable text for students and scholarsof social psychology. It will also be of interest to psychologists,sociologists and cultural theorists concerned with masscommunication, and to all those with an interest in currentperspectives in the social sciences.

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Exploring the interrelationship between war and politics, a series of lectures by the late French philosopher traces the evolution of a new understanding of society and its relation to war, revealing war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power. 10,000 first printing.

Exploring the interrelationship between war and politics, a series of lectures by the late French philosopher traces the evolution of a new understanding of society and its relation to war, revealing war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Studies the life of the controversial twentieth-century French philosopher, including his influence on historians, critics, and novelists, and his closely guarded private life

Product Description: This book examines the central questions of democracy and politics in modern societies. Through an analysis of some of the key texts of 19th and 20th century thought - from Marx, Michelet and de Tocqueville to Hannah Arendt - the author explores the ambiguities of democracy, the nature of human rights, the idea and the reality of revolution, the emergence of totalitarianism and the changing relations between politics, religion and the image of the body...read more