LES BELLES LETTRES Catalog 2012
Foreign Rights
LES BELLES LETTRES Stand 6.1 A954 www.lesbelleslettres.com 95 boulevard Raspail - 75006 Paris - France Droits étrangers - Foreign Rights Marie-Pierre Ciric Téléphone 33 (0)1 43 54 47 57 E-mail : mpciric@lesbelleslettres.com Catalog translated by Carol MACOMBER macuse@ix.netcom.com - Tel./Fax: (717) 355-2472 For Spanish and Portuguese - Eduardo MELON Tel + 34 91 365 25 16 Fax + 34 91 364 07 00 E-mail : eduardo@amvagencialiteraria.com
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DROITS DISPONIBLES AVAILABLE RIGHTS List in French and English Table des Matières
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// Contents
Histoire
- Véronique BOUDON-MILLOT, Galien de Pergame. Médecin et philosophe - Nicolas RICHER, La Religion des Spartiates. Croyances et cultes dans l’Antiquité - Pierre BRULÉ, Comment percevoir le sanctuaire grec ? Une analyse sensorielle du paysage sacré - Claude AZIZA & Cathy ROUSSET, Rome par ses historiens - Alain MALISSARD, Les Romains et la mer - Gilbert LABBÉ, L’affirmation de la puissance romaine en Judée - Bernard ECK, La mort rouge. Homicide, guerre et souillure en Grèce ancienne - Joseph BIDEZ, La vie de l’empereur Julien - Stéphane VAN DAMME, Métropoles de papiers. Naissance de l’archéologie urbaine à Paris et à Londres - Sylvain VENAYRE, Panorama du voyage (1780-1920). Mots, figures, pratiques - Nicolas BALZAMO, Les Deux Cathédrales. Mythe et histoire à Chartres (XI-XXe siècles) - Galit HADDAD, 1914-1919. Ceux qui protestaient - Laurent BOLARD, Le voyage des peintres en Italie au XVIIe siècle - Alexandra POZZO, La Glossolalie dans la culture occidentale - Claude DUBAR & Vanilda PAIVA, Le secret d’Alvino. Récits de vie d’un indien au Brésil
19 Essai
- Gabriel DUFAY & Denis PODALYDÈS, L’acteur et le paradoxe. Suivi de Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien - Sylvain VENAYRE, Disparu ! Enquête sur Sylvain Venayre - Nicolas TANTI-HARDOUIN, La liberté au risque de la santé publique - Pierre & André SAUZEAU, La quatrième fonction. Altérité et marginalité dans l’idéologie des Indos-Européens - Jean-Noël ROBERT, L’Asie au cœur. Voyages en quête d’humanité - Pierre-Robert LECLERCQ, Bonnot et la fin d’une époque - Sylvie GILBERT, Femmes d’altitude - Jackie PIGEAUD, Les Loges de Philostrate - Xavier PAVIE, Les Exercices Spirituels antiques, La philosophie comme manière de vivre
28 Art
- Patrice FAVA, Aux Portes du ciel : la statuaire taoïste du Hunan
30 Anthologie
- Alain LAURENT & Vincent VALENTIN, Les Penseurs libéraux
Guides Belles Lettres des civilisations
32 - Michèle THERRIEN, Les Inuit
- Henri SUHAMY, L’Angleterre élisabéthaine
HISTOIRE
Galien de Pergame. Un médecin grec à Rome Galen of Pergamon. A Grec Physician in Rome
October 2012 - 360 pages
A captivating biography about a gladiators’ physician
Rarely has any author of Antiquity told us as much about himself, rarely has any autobiographical matter been as abundant, and rarely has any work had more impact than these writings by Galen, which have been translated into Arabic and Armenian, and have travelled as far as China. This physician’s life was, indeed, fascinating. Born in Pergamon in the early 2nd century AD, Galen (129-216) was taught by a father whom he loved so much that it was only after the latter died that Galen decided to leave his native city to join the respected Hippocratic tradition of itinerant doctors. After caring for gladiators he settled in Rome, where his office as Commodus’ personal physician (AD 161-192) afforded him the leisure to devote himself to his research. Both revered and envied, he probably had no choice but to leave Rome shortly before his death. The latter gave rise to many legends, including a curious one which claimed that the doctor died while trying to find Christ’s disciples. Despite all that, Galen should not be perceived as a scientific author solely devoted to complex technical and philosophical postulations. Quite to the contrary, Galen liked to talk about himself and indulged in doing so throughout the twenty thousand-odd pages comprising his treatises preserved in Greek in the benchmark compendium of his complete works – the Karl Gottlob Kühn edition published in Leipzig between 1821 and 1833. Despite this bounty of first-hand sources, uncommon for Antiquity, the task of writing Galen’s biography is anything but straightforward: other evidence about the doctor is rare, late and unreliable, and Galen’s admissions in his writings are neither free of guile nor of ideology. The challenge of writing this book was obviously a source of enjoyment for the biographer, whose enthusiasm is as infectious as her conciseness. Véronique Boudon-Millot is a Professor at Université Paris Sorbonne and Director of CNRS Paris IV’s Laboratoire Médecine grecque. She initiated the first edition of Galen’s Ne pas se chagriner (2007) and served as director of the CUF edition.
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HISTOIRE
La Religion des Spartiates. Croyances et cultes dans l’Antiquité The Spartans’ Religion. Beliefs and Cults in Antiquity
April 2012 - 816 pages
Spartan beliefs and religious practices in Antiquity
What image does the word “Spartans” bring to mind, if not that of war professionals capable of defeating the Athenians at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC? This perception actually dates back to Antiquity, thanks in large part to the Athenian Xenophon, who pointed out that even with regard to religious matters, the Spartans surpassed the Greeks in their systematic practices, which were aimed at ensuring their gods’ protection. The author compiled a fragmented yet quite prolific set of sources which serve as a foundation for his conclusions. From childhood until their death, Sparta’s men and women inhabited a universe in which the influence of supernatural powers was perceived to be omnipresent, whether in terms of such emotions as Fear and Love, or of the gods’ protection of a particular space. The main known celebrations also clearly show how the Spartans strove to earn the favour of divine entities, particularly by respecting natural seasonal cycles. Indeed, their conception of Man’s harmony with the cosmos demanded a constant effort, one manifested by selecting those men and women best suited to appeal to the gods, as well as by maintaining a very specific timetable for religious activities.
Nicolas Richer who holds an agrégation in history, was a Senior Lecturer at Paris-I (1994-2000) before becoming a Professor at Université Strasbourg-II (2000-2003). He now teaches at École normale supérieure lettres et sciences humaines in Lyon. He has penned numerous articles on Sparta and Publications de la Sorbonne published his work Les Éphores. Études sur l’histoire et sur l’image de Sparte (VIIIe-IIIe siècle avant J.-C.) (1998)
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HISTOIRE
Comment percevoir le sanctuaire grec ? Une analyse sensorielle du paysage sacré How should Greek Sanctuaries Be Perceived? A Sensorial Study of the Sacred Landscape
November 2012 - 220 pages
A thorough and well-documented approach to sanctuaries in Ancient Greece
This sensorial experience of our contemporary progression along roads and pathways which lead us to countless ancient Hellenic sanctuaries – particularly those whose traces are not simply evanescent – visiting Sounion’s Poseidon, the Artemis at Brauron, the Heraion of Perachora, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and Letoides of Xanthos – reveals to us, as modern pilgrims, a preliminary definition of the Greek sanctuary. It is physical (sites such as digs have restored all or part of its content, including its sacred way leading us to its cella, peribolos, stairs, and the entire structure’s geometry with its contingent syntax, of course (resulting most often from the orography and the hydrography) and obviously evolutionary, but regardless of the purpose composed on the basis of a common lexicon – along with (depending on the case) the oikoi, altar(s), temple(s), adyton, treasury, Heroön, porticos, kepos, alsos, etc. – each site reveals an architectural, and even at times quasi-urbanistic, composition that must be interpreted from the perspective of its successive fittings, and which make the sanctuary comprise an original figure in and of the landscape, full of symbols, mass and meaning. The fortunate testimony of a 2nd century AD traveller such as Pausanias has, on several occasions, allowed us to verify that, nearly 2,000 years later, we share with him this scenographic perception of sanctuaries – one which induced him to exclaim that the latter were human or “natural” works worthy of being seen.
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Pierre Brulé, Professor Emeritus at Université de Rennes 2, is the author of Périclès : L’apogée d’Athènes (Gallimard, “Découvertes Gallimard” collection, 1991, reprinted in 1994), La Grèce d’à côté. Réel et imaginaire en miroir en Grèce antique (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007), and Les femmes grecques à l’époque classique (Hachette, 2006). He also directed publication of the volume La norme religieuse en Grèce (Liège, 2011).
HISTOIRE
Rome par ses historiens Rome According to its Historians
November 2012 - 360 pages
From Aelius to Zosim, this coherent and colourful, educational and entertaining book relates the History of Rome from its origins to its final days There are numerous anthologies by ancient Greek and Latin historians, and no shortage of source books, emperor biographies and accounts of battles compiled here and there in studies and synopses. Yet none has ever followed the single trajectory of a complete history with a (legendary) beginning and a (mythical) ending. A History of Rome, indeed, but which History? First and foremost, the one related to us by historians. A logical response, although the authors of this book occasionally chose to rely on other writers, poets, a novelist, and a few apologists. The result is a sort of song of heroic deeds, or Bayeux tapestry, highlighting the most historic or picturesque moments which are the most widely known – those which everyone recalls: the Twins and the She-Wolf, the Geese of the Capitol, Hannibal’s Elephants, the Gladiators’ Rebellion, Rome’s fire and its “fall”; the portraits engraved with a burin; Rome’s founding fathers: Brutus, Cincinnatus, Camilla and Cato; its enemies: Hannibal, Vercingetorix, Jugurtha, Attila. Its rebels: Spartacus, Catiline (Cicero made the comparison); its warlords: Marius, Sylla, Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, and Rome’s emperors – both wise and mad – from Augustus to little Romulus Augustulus; its women, ruled by their hearts or their bodies, their power or their duty: Cleopatra, Agrippina, Messalina, Zenobia, Theodora, not to mention the throng of barbarians rushing to get past its frontiers: Goths and their consorts, Vandals and Huns, confront the last of Rome’s defenders: Aetius, Ricimer and Stilicon. Lastly, these new voices of Christians, apologists and ecclesiastical historians.
An Honorary Senior Lecturer on Latin Language and Literature at Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III), Claude Aziza collaborated on the publication by Les Belles Lettres of the following books by Alexandre Dumas: Isaac Laquedem (2005); Mémoires d’Horace (2006) and E. G. Bulwer-Lytton’s Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi (2007) [English title: The Last Days of Pompeii]. He also contributed to the publications L’Histoire and Le Monde de la Bible. French language professor Cathy Rousset translated Murena’s work (Dargaud, 2001) into Latin.
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HISTOIRE
Les Romains et la mer The Romans and the Sea
October 2012 - 300 pages
From the most concrete to the most abstract, this work relates in detail the full gamut of the relations which the Romans maintained with a sea they sailed to quench their thirst for conquest and ultimately dubbed Mare nostrum. In 269 BC, the Romans did not hesitate to embark on ships which they did not know how to command or sail to attack the Carthaginians’ maritime empire. Thanks to their audacity and perseverance, they defeated Carthage and became the masters of the Mediterranean Sea whose pirates they drove out, and on which they even founded their Empire when Octavian put to flight Antony and Cleopatra’s ships at Actium (in 31 BC). Having learned much about maritime matters – among others – from the Greeks, they managed to build shipyards, renovate ports, maintain a military fleet, promote the rapid development of fishing and navigation companies, and extend their major shipping lanes to India, China and the Atlantic Ocean. Though landsmen at heart, the Romans gradually allowed the sea to seep into their public and private lives. They cooked delicate saltwater fish dishes, thoroughly enjoyed oysters, and were wild about the pearls and murex extracted from the shells. They discovered the pleasures of boating, the charm of beaches and the benefits of a certain form of thalassotherapy. The wealthiest among them commissioned magnificent homes on the seashore, while their scholars meditated on questions raised by sea currents or by Atlantic tides: pirates, navigators, storms and sea voyages became lasting themes in their philosophy, rhetoric, plays and poetry.
Romain Malissard is Professor Emeritus of Latin and Roman Civilisation at Université d’Orléans. In 1994, he published with Les Belles Lettres Les Romains et l’eau, which was republished in 2002 and translated into Spanish in 1996 (and republished in 2001).
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HISTOIRE
L’affirmation de la puissance romaine en Judée Assertion of Roman Power in Judea (63 BC-AD 136)
July 2012 - 672 pages
Statute and powers of Judean governors from Pompey to Hadrian From Pompey’s conquest in Cicero’s time to the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt under Hadrian, Judea remained a subject of concern for Rome, even though it was a relatively minor territory located on the outermost bounds of the Empire. Alternating periods of confrontation and appeasement occurred during those two centuries. However, in the course of revolts, inevitably followed by repressions, the Judeans’ sense of identity was politically annihilated, and Judea became an ordinary province, having lost even its very name. This historic process is broadly outlined in the book’s decidedly structural approach. The study, which encompasses the position granted by Rome to the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties, is largely based on an examination of the titles and powers attributed to the various actors, notably to Roman governors of equestrian rank, from Augustus to Nero. These were undoubtedly prefects, at least during most of the period, and later perhaps procurators, and if so, probably after Claudius, and no earlier than circa AD 52. These men were only assigned auxiliary troops with few men: it was still an era of autonomy in Judea, even in terms of tax collection. Roman equestrians in charge of Judea had always been under the control of the Syrian legate, a consul who alone could command an imperium. The Great Revolt of AD 66 and the destruction of the Temple by Proconsul Titus ushered in a new chapter for Judea, which now constituted a regular province, having been entrusted to senators, initially of praetorian rank. Masada, the Sicarii’s last fortified town, was taken following a brief siege and direct assault. Archaeological evidence seems to refute the likelihood that its remaining defenders committed suicide. Recent epigraphical data show that the Roman Army in Judea, under the Flavians, was much more powerful than previously thought. The war against Bar Kokhba was costly, and the Roman Empire, whose troops were also needed in Brittany, had to mobilise all of its resources to win the conflict this time. In 136, under Hadrian as Imperator II, Judea became a province of Syria-Palestine.
A graduate of École Nationale Supérieure des Bibliothèques, Gilbert Labbé is an expert historian. Roman political and military institutions are the main specialty of this former Chief Curator at Université Bordeaux 3, who holds a PhD in History, Languages and Ancient Literature.
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HISTOIRE
La mort rouge. Homicide, guerre et souillure en Grèce ancienne The Red Death: Homicide, War and Dishonourable Acts in Ancient Greece
April 2012 - 448 pages
From glorious fatalities on the battlefield to sordid crimes: an indepth exploration of violent death in Greece
Once again, Ancient Greece has a timely message for us, this time about killing – the ultimate transgression. Orestes, a parricidal killer, was hunted by the merciless Erinyes. On Troy’s plain, the heroic slayers Achilles and Hector were driven by a death instinct named Ares. Around 400 BC, on the shores of the Black Sea, survivors of the army of the Ten Thousand participated in a mysterious purification ceremony. Elsewhere, the orator Antiphonus caused a strange belief to spread far and wide, according to which homicide was a dishonourable act that invited its victims’ phantoms to cry out for vengeance. Yet in one corner of Sicily, strange rites created magic thoughts capable of removing murder’s demons. Democratic and inventive Athens, resolved not to be outdone, first allowed the murderer to choose exile even before his trial was over, if he so wished, and then proclaimed a law which encouraged the slaying of any would-be tyrant who would threaten his life. Nonetheless, Aristotle warns that homicide constitutes an offence under any circumstances, without exception. While the representations – in the broader sense of the word – of violent death among the Greeks are explored in great detail from the vantage point of literature, history, law, philosophy and anthropology, the work as a whole is versicoloured, as might also be said of the immortal Homer’s winged words, at the final instant in which the warrior falls in battle: “[…] and over both eyes closed the red death and the strong destiny.”
Bernard Eck is an École Normale Supérieure (ENS) graduate with an agrégation in literature and a PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Université de Bourgogne. In 2003, Les Belles Lettres published his critical edition of Book II of Library of History by Diodorus Siculus.
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HISTOIRE
La vie de l’empereur Julien The Life of Emperor Julian
February 2012 - 412 pages
The long-awaited new edition of an essential biography
This book, which is the fruit of long years of research and reflection, presents through a succession of short chapters a sound historic overview of Julian’s amazing career as a man of letters and emperor. Most of the work spans the brief period of his life when Julian, then emperor, strove to restore Hellenism, reformed paganism by means of a theocracy, and fought against Christianity. J. Bidez’s contribution consists of demonstrating that the fight against Christianity was not the outcome of a plan made in advance and carried out in stages, but the result of a series of diverse events and reversals which occurred as the era unfolded.
Belgian historian and philologist Joseph Bidez was one of the most eminent experts in the history of Late Antiquity. After studying philology under H. Diels in Berlin, he began teaching at Ghent University in 1894 . He became Chairman of the Belgian Royal Academy in 1934. He translated the complete works of Julian the Apostate for Les Belles Lettres (CUF) and co-authored Les Mages hellénisés with F. Cumont (1938, republished in 2007).
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HISTOIRE
Métropoles de papiers. Naissance de l’archéologie urbaine à Paris et àLondres (XVIIe-XXe siècles) Research on Metropolises. The Birth of Urban Archaeology in Paris and London (17th-20th centuries)
June 2012 - 312 pages
A comparative study of the metropolises of Paris and London from the mid-17th century to the early 20th century “The metropolis is no longer limited to the city,” his subjects protested when Louis XIV was king. Indeed, the cultural capitals’ era emerged from an urban representation crisis caused by an unprecedented expansion of Western cities. Modern metropolises – worthy heirs to the powerful cities of antiquity, Babylonia, Athens and Rome – have been haunted since the Renaissance by the prospect of the demise of urban civilization. To better prepare for the future, scientists are turning to the past, launching a tireless quest to identify the origins of the city – its sources of greatness. This book relates how Urban archaeology, which flourished in London and Paris between the 17th and 19th centuries, came to constitute a genuine paradigm in the conception of any historic approach to the city and its physical and material, as well as visual, history. A form of partisan science, such knowledge fostered new political imaginings that rethought the link between affiliation and territory, as urban emigration intensified and metropolises expanded, leading to the development of metropolitan identity. This investigative book deciphers and relates this endeavour to shed light on urban destiny, relying on research from antiquarians to city museums.
Stéphane Van Damme is a Professor of Modern History in Sciences Po’s Department of History. His research focuses on urban history and the history of the humanities and social sciences. To date, he has published four books: Descartes. Essai d’histoire culturelle d’une grandeur philosophique (XVIIeXXe siècle), Presses de Sciences Po, 2002; Paris, capitale philosophique de la Fronde à la Révolution, Odile Jacob, 2005; Le Temple de la sagesse. Savoirs, écriture et sociabilité urbaine (Lyon, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), Éditions de l’EHESS, 2005; and L’Épreuve libertine. Morale, soupçon et pouvoirs dans la France baroque, CNRS éditions, 2008.
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HISTOIRE
Panorama du voyage (1780-1920). Mots, figure, pratiques A Panorama of Travel (1780-1920). Words, Figures, Practices
September 2012 - 600 pages
Genealogy of travel from 1780 to 1920
Panorama du voyage offers readers an inventory of all of the different ways in which travel was undertaken and depicted from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. This book, which is unique in its genre (no other work provides an exhaustive study of the birth of modern travel), should benefit anyone interested in learning more about past-century travellers (the Centre de recherche sur la Littérature des Voyages of Université Paris-4, for example, lists over 1,000 researchers on this subject – excluding those not recorded as professional researchers!). Why the 19th century? The central idea behind the project is that the period from 1780 to 1920 constitutes a uniform sequence in the history of travel. Although some may have thought it was just the opposite (with railroads, steamboats, colonialism, major pilgrimages, etc. giving the impression that the period was actually cut in half and that too many characteristics distinguish the 1780 traveller from his 1920 counterpart), the book shows that, to the contrary, the two time periods have much in common and that, between 1780 and 1810, an entire set of patterns emerged that would be associated with travellers until the start of the 20th century. These patterns concern the practices and representations of modes of transport, and trips undertaken for study, exploration, health, pilgrimage and pleasure. This text also poses a methodological challenge. The author pursued an original method in constituting his body of sources and analysing the latter. He based his study of the history of travel on the changing meanings of the words which, from 1780 to 1920, were used to express the travel experience, the explorer, and, naturally, the tourist. A Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at Université Paris 1 PanthéonSorbonne, Sylvain Venayre has published several books on the cultural history of travel.
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HISTOIRE
Les deux cathédrales. Mythe et histoire à Chartres (XI-XXe siècles) Two Cathedrals. Myth and History in Chartres (11th to 20th centuries)
October 2012 - 320 pages
The true and imaginary history of Chartres Cathedral This book is the story of an error accepted as truth for one thousand years. The small town of Chartres built a cathedral which brought it everlasting fame. Yet it also created a different sort of monument: a foundation myth. This imaginary cathedral was as ambitious as its stone alter ego, since it made the Chartrain church the fruit of a prophecy: informed of the future birth of a virgin destined to bring forth the Redeemer, Carnute druids erected a statute to her and worshipped her – Christians before the advent of Christianity. Far from being a hoax concocted in the shadow of a cloister, this myth was the outcome of a patient quest undertaken by generations of scholars throughout the Middle Ages and the modern era. Some continued to defend it, even in the early 20th century. Writing its history meant retracing the twists and turns of a mythographic creation which nearly spanned a millennium, reconstituting the changing and constant elements of a certain type of relationship with the past, and quite simply relating the life and death of a truth.
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Nicolas Balzamo, born in 1982, holds a PhD in History. In 2008, he published the journal kept by a 16th-century native of Chartres, La vie de Jean Bouvart, bourgeois chartrain du XVIe siècle, d’après son Journal (1521-1561) (Société archéologique d’Eure-et-Loir). His thesis on 16th-century miracles in France will be published by Les Belles Lettres (in its “Miroir des humanistes” collection).
HISTOIRE
1914-1919. Ceux qui protestaient 1914-1919: Those Who Were Protesting
March 2012 - 440 pages
The “outraged” from the 1914-1918 trenches, examined at long last 1914-1918 was a bellicose interlude between two eras characterised by a strong rejection of war. In 1914, it only took a few days for the countless pacifist voices being raised in all social strata and among political circles to be drowned out by the wave of violence that was sweeping through Europe. In 1918, evidence of the disaster and of the vast mourning which it had caused restored to those voices all of their original relevance and weight. Many years later, the influence of those ideas was still being so keenly felt in historiography that it impacted analyses of the protest for the entire duration of the conflict. Galit Haddad therefore decided to re-examine this issue. Unwilling to identify with any political or ideological position, she tackles the protest as a cultural phenomenon by analysing the discourse of protestors, whether combatants or civilians, men or women. She decodes the arguments they advanced in a climate that was hostile towards them, characterised by repression and arrests, as well as the ups and downs of this multiform movement. Most importantly, she unveils a ground-breaking discovery: the protest phenomenon cannot be understood without linking it to the actors’ changing ideas about the duration of the war and the prospects of defeat or victory. For example, as soon as the Allies’ July 1918 counter-offensive paved the way for ultimate victory, anti-war protests ceased among French Army ranks. Freed from such biases, this study of protest makes it possible for readers to share the anguish experienced by soldiers and civilians, as well as their hopes as ordinary human beings confronting a drama far beyond their comprehension.
Galit Haddad, is pursuing her postdoctoral studies at ÉHESS, where she works as a professor.
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HISTOIRE
La glossolalie en Occident Glossolalia in Western Culture
November 2012 - 480 pages
A thorough study of a linguistic phenomenon acknowledged in Christianity, Shamanism, and Spiritualism
From the Greek word glossa (“language”) and lalein “to babble,” “to speak,” glossolalia refers to a confused and improvised elocution not articulated in words, which is not a language and possesses neither a lexicon nor a syntax. Although psychopathological forms of glossolalia exist, they are not explored in this book, which examines the already extensive field of religious, spiritualist, and ludic glossolalia. These are observed from a historic perspective encompassing Antiquity, the New Testament, Early Christianity and mystical and modern developments, as well as from an analytical viewpoint, in order to distinguish the phenomenon from the numerous forms of glossomania recorded throughout history in various cultural contexts. This book explores glossolalia from the vantage point of the historic anthropology of language, delving into highly diverse periods ranging from Babylonian and Classical Antiquity to the tongues spoken in contemporary charismatic gatherings. Combining scientific rigour with a respect for beliefs, the author lists and comments on the best-known examples of glossolalia (Loyola, the “little prophets” of Cévennes, the medium Helen Smith, and Hildegarde of Bingen’s linguistic creations. Extremely well-documented and always insightful, this work broaches a difficult subject respectfully and intelligently, while avoiding medical reductionism and any refusal to try to understand the subject by merely acknowledging the mystery of glossolalia.
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Alessandra Pozzo is a specialist in obscure languages and forms of expression on the borderline between signing and language. She published Grrr…. grommelot. Parlare senza parole. Dai primi balbetii al grammelot di Dario Fo with CLUEB, Bologna (1997) in Italy. After defending her dissertation on semiotics (dir. Umberto Eco, Bologna), and later in language sciences (dir. Jacques Roubaud, EHESS), she was appointed to head the Cryptic Languages seminar at EHESS and is a researcher associated with the CRNS Laboratory for the Study of Monotheism (LEM).
HISTOIRE
Le voyage des peintres en Italie au XVIIe siècle Painters’ 17th-century Travels to Italy
May 2012 - 256 pages
Artists’ fascination with Italian cultural supremacy
In the 17th century, the need for artists to travel to Italy was not yet as compelling as it would later become. It would soon represent the dream of an apprenticeship, of a youth – sometimes even of a lifetime. It was a benchmark, a requirement for anyone wishing to acquire training, or wanting to make a name for himself in his own country. It symbolised a fascination for the country that saw the triumph of Roman civilisation and the flowering of the Renaissance. Even today, it remains an adventure and a source of wonder. This book follows the painters step by step on journeys with countless surprises and new learning experiences. It describes the conditions of their travel and accommodations. It evokes their friendships and hardships, their loves, and sometimes their deaths. It explores their daily activities, and those joys and pains that turned a sojourn in Italy into a paradise and – more rarely – a living hell. It describes their craft as painters and explores their work as professional artists, particularly in Rome. From these travels and sojourns – sometimes prolonged for an entire lifetime – artists have left traces of their skills, often in the form of vedute, which were views of cities or landscapes recreating the Italy of that era. These works not only show us what the painters saw and reveal their tastes and those of their century, but also passionately and poetically convey their love of Italy.
Laurent Bolard who holds a PhD in the History of Modern Art from Université de Paris IV Sorbonne, is an expert in Renaissance and 17th-century Italian painting. He has written numerous articles and recently published a book on Caravaggio with Fayard (“Beaux-Arts” collection, 2010).
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HISTOIRE
Le Secret d’Alvino. Récits de vie d’une indien au Brésil Alvino’s Secret. True Stories of an Indian in Brazil
March 2012 - 408 pages
An amazing true story
In December 1989, Indian Macuxi became priest Alvino Andrade de Silvain, an activist member of the Indigenous Movement, which was fighting alongside the Roraima Indians for recognition of their rights. At first glance, Alvino’s story as told by Claude Dubar seems to evolve at the crossroads between an individual’s life journey and History in the broadest sense of the term: the modern-day evolution of the Amazonian Indians and their elites, the interaction of identities, ethnicity and “Indianity” from their very ancient origins on up to more recent mutations, not to mention the changes which have occurred in the Catholic Church’s relationship with the Indians and their Christianised elite. Yet Claude Dubar, an expert in socialisation, manages to identify, based upon Alvino’s singular path, a broader model of the transition from a community-based, to a society-based, world — one that does not require an identity conversion, but rather reveals the managed co-existence of pluralist real-life worlds. This transition was not without conflicts, crises and even occasional breaks from the past, yet by constructing a narrative identity, it made it possible to remain faithful to one’s origins, which is, in the final analysis, a form of ethics.
Claude Dubar is a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at Université de Versailles, notably wrote La Socialisation (A. Colin, 4th ed., 2010) and La Crise des identités (PUF, 4th ed., 2010).
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Vanilda Paiva is a retired professor from Federal Unversity of Rio de Janeiro and Senior Researcher with the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico (CNPq). Her published works include Une Histoire de l’éducation populaire au Brésil (1973) and Paulo Freire et le nationaldéveloppementalisme (1980).
ESSAI
L’acteur et le paradoxe. Suivi de Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien The Actor and the Paradox Followed by Denis Diderot’s Paradoxe sur le comédien
October 2012 - 220 pages
A debate over the actor’s bible
By way of an introduction to this canonical book, Denis Podalydès – a Diderot connoisseur – indulges in an animated exchange with Gabriel Dufay. They converse and wonder aloud about Paradoxe, its continued relevance and its impact on their respective generations and careers. Both actors find themselves in the same situation as in Diderot’s play: like the latter’s two mysterious speakers, they confront their contradictions as they take turns digressing and talking about what it is like to be a comedian. Much more than a new annotated edition of Paradoxe, this book decompartmentalises a work extensively commented upon by scholars by comparing it with modern-day actor’s practical experiences.
Gabriel Dufay, is an actor and director. Recently, he played a part in Alain Resnais’ film, Vous n’avez encore rien vu. In 2013, he is scheduled to act in Emmanuel Bourdieu’s play, L’Homme qui se hait, to be co-directed by Denis Podalydès Actor and director Denis Podalydès is a Sociétaire of the Comédie Française. He won theatrical fame in the theatre through plays such as Le Révizor, Ruy Blas and Platonov. In the cinema, he acted, among others, in films directed by Bertrand Tavernier, François Dupeyron, Alain Resnais, and by his own brother, Bruno Podalydès. He recently played Nicolas Sarkozy in La Conquête, directed by Xavier Durringer.
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ESSAI
Disparu ! Enquête sur Sylvain Venayre Vanished ! An Inquiry into Sylvain Venayre
October 2012 - 160 pages
An original assessment and humouristic account of contemporary historiography After history came historiography, followed later by the history of historiography. Historic research seems to progress this way: like a spiral. The latest injunction would seem to support this: institutions of higher learning now require historians aspiring to the rank of Professor to produce a self-assessment report on their own research. This report obviously needs to include an analysis of the researcher’s tools. Yet for nearly thirty years, there has been consensus on the idea that the historian’s main tool is the historian himself. This little book offers a facetious way to seriously inquire into the meaning of this recent development, using terms such as “critical turning point,” “biographical illusion,” and “ego-history.” Sylvain Venayre will also be discussed, since it concerns his work. Yet Sylvain Venayre is just a name – one that represents nothing more than a simple idea: history is, above all, about dates and words.
Sylvain Venayre a Senior Lecturer on Modern History at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, has published several books on the cultural history of travel, including La Gloire de l’aventure. Genèse d’une mystique moderne. 1850-1940.
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ESSAI couverture à venir
La liberté au risque de la santé publique Freedom at the Risk of Public Health
October 2012 - 220 pages
Can people be free and in good health? An in-depth study on the over-medicalisation of society
Our private lives are invaded on a daily basis by warnings such as “eat five fruits and vegetables a day,” “watch your weight,” “do not smoke,” “exercise,” “do not abuse alcohol,” “control your sexual activities to avoid AIDS and other sexually transmissible diseases,” “avoid addictions,” “take steps to prevent cancer and diabetes,” and “drive carefully.” What defines “risk behaviours” in our modern societies is now the domain of public health experts on the basis of body control and management rhetoric. The citizen – the patient – is seeing even his most intimate life space extensively codified or standardised by these various prevention policy incantations at the very moment when the Law on “sanitary democracy” (passed on 4 March 2002) is striving to make the citizen and the patient an autonomous actor responsible for, and capable of, managing his or her “health capital” (homo medicus). All of these are shaping the cultural framework of a modern society in which the quest for perfect health and cultivating the body have taken firm root. The intent of this essay is to broaden the debate arising in public health by clarifying it through the application of social sciences.
Nicolas Tanti-Hardouin, Professor of Health Economics, teaches the social sciences of health and public health at the Public Health Laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine of Marseille (Aix-Marseille Université).
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ESSAI
La Quatrième Fonction. Altérité et marginalité dans l’idéologie des Indos-Européens The Fourth Function: Otherness and Marginality in Indo-European Ideology
June 2012 - 416 pages
Enlarging the Dumezilian model to include the fourth function (marginality, disorder, transformation), thus reviving the reading of the great myths According to Sir Darius, one of Salman Rushdie’s characters, “Three functions aren’t enough. There must be a fourth (...). – Impossible, replies Methwold. Old Georges’ three concepts cover the entire social landscape. – Yes, says Sir Darius. “But what about outsidedness, what about all that which is beyond the pale, above the fray (…)? The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside of the frame.” Indeed, the tripartite structure discovered by Georges Dumézil does not exhaust the ancient Indo-European people’s ideology, and this great scholar realized that: neither is there any place in it for the Vedic deity Rudra, or the Scandinavians’ Loki, or the Greeks’ Apollo! Nonetheless, the already ancient theory of the fourth function has yet to be accepted. Basing their research on the apprehension over the number and the colour system, the authors reveal the interpretative fecundity of the quadrifunctional theory in the vast domain stretching from the ancient Indians, Greeks and Romans to the “last pagans” of the Hindu Kush, including medieval Ireland and Scandinavia. They outline and enrich the field of the fourth function – the rest, the abnormal, the ambiguous, the transitory, the Other; foreigner, executioner, slave, shepherd, monster, rogue, poet or prophet – their paradoxical usefulness, their invasive energy.
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Pierre Sauzeau holds an Agrégation in Classical Literature and is a Doctor of Philosophy. A Professor Emeritus in Classical Greek and Mythology at Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III, he has authored Partages d’Argos (Belin, 2005), numerous scientific articles and chapters in educational books, and has co-edited several collective works André Sauzeau, since completing his literary and scientific studies, his research has mainly focused on the sensorial properties of objects, system dynamics and organisational standards. His current areas of study include comparative social and ideological systems, with particular application to the Indo-European field.
ESSAI
L’Asie au cœur. Voyages en quête d’humanité Beloved Asia : Travel Diary
February 2012 - 376 pages
A Rome historian and his travels in search of humanity
These unusual travel stories unfold like a series of meetings with people whose lives are the very opposite of our own in time as well as in space, yet they are our contemporaries. For the author, this is a journey taken down the paths followed by humanity in order to understand these ordinary – and often extraordinary – beings, so far away, and yet so near. This quest can only be realised by those who are willing to keep hearts and minds open, to unleash their capacity to admire and even feel compassion for that part of our world which endures great suffering. Ordinary men with incredible destinies, forgotten peoples trying to survive in another era like the Papuans or the Mentawai, despite the good conscience of major powers which would like to make them instantly skip ahead several centuries by imposing on them the benefits of globalisation, oppressed peoples whose lives have been sacrificed on the altar of a few mad dictators: Chinese, Tibetan, Uighur, and Cambodian. In exploring this moving and heartfelt account, readers will discover a long list of such far-distant brothers.
Latinist and historian, Jean-Noël Robert, (has already published several works on the history of human behaviour with Les Belles Lettres (including Les Plaisirs à Rome, Les Modes à Rome, etc.) and contributed to several television documentaries. He is also the Director of Les Belles Lettres «Realia» and «Guide Belles Lettres des Civilisations» collections.
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ESSAI
Bonnot et la fin d’une époque Bonnot and the End of an Era
April 2012 - 272 pages
The famous murderer of “Bonnot’s Gang”
In April 1912, after a siege which drew thousands of spectators chanting “Kill him,” Jules Bonnot died “from his wounds.” One year later, the last three members of the gang known as the “Auto Bandits,” were dubbed “the Bonnot Gang.” An inexhaustible topic whose effect often captured more attention than the cause, was covered by the press as if it were an ongoing serial which ran from December 1911 to April 1913. Yet today, this gang still holds a privileged place in criminal history. Bonnot and his associates were not born murderers. Most of them only gradually turned from social rebellion to crime. They represented a violent side of anarchy, yet were unable to cope with some of their often very young members. History may not always repeat itself, yet this 1912 chronicle in which L’Humanité found itself in agreement with L’Action Française might well have been written after a G20 meeting, and a 1913 report by Le Petit Parisien and Le Figaro might have been clarifying a debate over so-called “high-crime” districts. Although crime may not be a by-product of society’s flaws, newspaper accounts claim – without actually daring to say so – that Bonnot also exemplified the rotten fruit of his time.
Pierre-Robert Leclercq has written novels, essays, a biography and pamphlets. As a literary critique at Études, Nouvelles Littéraires, Monde des livres and France Culture, he was awarded the 1998 Radio Prize by the Société des Auteurs Dramatiques for the body of his work in radiophonic fiction. Les Belles Lettres has notably published Le Tramway de Kafka (2007), Le Libraire de la rue Poliveau (2005) and Mes Catins (2005).
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ESSAI
Femmes d’altitude. Petit traité à l’usage des futures dirigeantes Women who Succeed. A Mini-guide for Tomorrow’s Women Business Leaders
April 2012 - 158 pages
The role of women in society and their dazzling progress. Personal testimonies
This book is above all a compendium of testimonies and suggestions based upon experience. In it, some thirty women who are rising in rank within very large corporations and organisations (Accor, SNCF, Accenture, L’Oréal, La Poste, Coca-Cola, TF1 publicité, Thales, etc.), as well as some female executive managers of SMEs (Kalidea, Pinceaux Léonard, J.-C. Lattès Éditions) whose career paths have proved equally rewarding and inspiring, share their own experiences. In order to place this issue in a recent historical perspective which will allow today’s readers to understand how cultural heritage influences our modern-day behaviours and decisions, the book includes a brief review of the relationship women had with the 20th-century work world, thus heightening women’s awareness of certain stereotypes which continue to impact our society, so that they may more easily break free of them. Through the interviewed managers’ accounts, this work profiles the new role models and offers diverse advice to young women whose ambition does not stop at the middle-management level. It is also written for business leaders and their DHRs, to whom it offers a few key pointers which will help them establish greater gender diversity on all hierarchical levels, including among their top management.
Sylvie Gilbert has led a dual career: from 1980 to 1995, she held corporate operational management positions (in the bank, healthcare and transportation sectors), first as a Company Secretary and later as a DHR. From 1995 on, her interest turned to consulting when she joined the Accenture Group, of which she became a partner in 2005 before creating Dirigeance, a company specialising in executive coaching, individual and group change management, communication and social engineering.
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ESSAI
Les Loges de Philostrate Philostratus’ Dwellings
May 2012 - 112 pages
A poetic exploration of thoughts on the role of imagery
“Look at this painting.” This is how the great Greek orator Philostratus (3rd century AD) spoke to a young boy, as he pointed to a painting before praising it. Is it a painting that “really” existed and has since disappeared, to archaeologists’ immense despair? Or was it a fictional reality, an image composed of words, a painting drawn using a poetrhetorician’s technique? The question soon becomes mind-boggling. In his essay which takes the form of a lively debate, Jackie Pigeaud leads the reader along the edges of poetry and painting, within a space in which phantasia reigns supreme; i.e., the power of appearances, the energy of images, the ambiguous faculty to imagine who creates the artist as well as the lunatic.
Jackie Pigeaud, an Emeritus Professor of Latin Literature at Université de Nantes, is also a member of Institut universitaire de France.
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ESSAI
Les exercices spirituels antiques. La philosophie comme manière de vivre Spiritual Exercises in Antiquity. Philosophy as a Way of Life
October 2012 - 250 pages
Prolonging ancient philosophy as a way of life All ancient philosophy is a spiritual exercise; i.e., a practice intended to transform a way of life, or of perceiving things in oneself or in others. It is at once an internal and external discourse and a practical implementation. That is how Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) described ancient philosophy, as a discipline meant to help human beings live better and enjoy what they experience, rather than to give free rein to their passions which ultimately will never be satisfied. The three major Schools of Antiquity (Epicurianism, Stoicism and Skepticism) developed techniques and methods for achieving greater well-being and shared a concern for humankind and its welfare, in order to live as fully as possible. All three stressed man and his serenity, man within a harmonious framework that would allow him to live with the awareness that life is short and the allotted time for living is uncertain, and that existence is punctuated with daily troubles, pains and obstacles that need to be overcome. This book is an extension of Pierre Hadot’s work, and, to a certain extent that of Michel Foucault, on this notion of “spiritual exercise.” However, although the latter term was offered as a conclusion in the case of Hadot’s research, here it serves as the author’s point of departure. The book begins by defining what a spiritual exercise really is. What is this notion, this term, which in Antiquity was also a practice? Spiritual exercise, in the sense of work undertaken to improve oneself and one’s transformation to achieve greater well-being indeed seems to be present – without being named as such – in ancient philosophy, even to the point of being its very reason for existing. Yet the term itself emerged much later under auspices not necessarily related to philosophy. That is why this book explores the notion in detail by examining the specific practices, implementations and theories that may directly or indirectly refer to it. Consequently, what Schools of Antiquity may be characterised as establishing and practicing spiritual exercises? Secondly, the author puts into perspective the common lines of thought between the different Schools, the need to philosophise, to know how to be prepared – particularly for sickness and death – and to know how to practice exercises and techniques such as asceticism, writing, listening, etc. The author then highlights the singularities of each School and mainly comparing that of the Stoics to the Epicureans and Sceptics. Lastly, the final section tackles the prolongation of spiritual exercises beyond Antiquity, through not only its revival at the dawn of Christianity, but also in the philosophies of the Renaissance (Montaigne), the Classical and Modern Era (Descartes), as well as during the Enlightenment (Shafesbury, Kant and Rousseau).
Xavier Pavie whose doctorate is in Philosophy, is a Senior Researcher at Université Paris Ouest’s IREPH (Institut de Recherches Philosophiques). He is the Director of the ESSEC Business School’s Institute for Service Innovation & Strategy (ISIS), where he also teaches. He is the author of several books (La Méditation philosophique. Une initiation aux exercices spirituels, Eyrolles, 2010; L’apprentissage de soi : Exercices spirituels de Socrate à Foucault, Eyrolles, 2009) and articles.
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E SA SRA TI
Aux Portes du ciel : la statuaire taoïste du Hunan At the Gates of Heaven. Taoist Statuary of HunanProvince: Chinese Art and Anthropology
November 2012 - 544 pages
This richly illustrated work is both a unique comprehensive survey and exhaustive inventory of Taoist statuary. This book is the fruit of a survey carried out in China’s Hunan Province that lasted more than ten years. Its starting point was the discovery, in a southern Chinese market, of several statues made of polychrome wood which contained consecration documents, some of which indicated that they concerned Taoist masters. They mentioned the date they were made, the names of the figures represented and those of the individuals commissioning them, the location of the statues, the reasons they had been created, the vows associated with the worship, and many other details about the local history. Countless sojourns in the centre of Hunan Province gradually brought answers to the various enigmas raised by the extensive corpus of devotional documents accompanying some two thousand statues, most of which dated from the last Manchu Dynasty (1644-1911). Not only had no one ever encountered statuary of this type in any other part of China, but this southern Hunan Province contained a very high number of Taoist Masters and sculptors who were perpetuating this very ancient tradition. Thanks to them, it was possible to assemble the pieces of a very complex puzzle attesting to a system of beliefs that had its roots in Chinese Antiquity and was highly reminiscent of the cult of the immortals Laozi and Zhuangzi. A comparison of scriptural sources preserved, among others, in the Taoist Canon compiled in the 15th century, along with the liturgy of this province’s masters, has made it possible – despite the turmoil of all sorts experienced by this country – to shed some light on the extraordinary continuity from which Taoism, as well as a very large number of distinctive local features, have benefited because the transmission within Taoist lineages occurred in very different ways in each region of China. Hunan Province and its statuary may thus have provided the opportunity to write a new page in the history of Taoism, which remains one of the essential components of Chinese civilisation and thought. Written from an anthropologist’s perspective, this book dedicated to Hunan Province’s Taoist art was not exclusively written for sinologists. Venturing far beyond the traditional Chinese studies’ framework, it explores religion in general, referring to the research of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Philippe Descola, Clifford Geertz and Alfred Gell and claims a kinship with Marcel Gauchet’s philosophy of history and the surrealist legacy. The copious illustrations accompanying the text include previously unpublished documents which are indispensable tools for readers to appreciate Taoism as a living tradition.
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Sinologist and anthropologist Patrice Fava who spent over twenty years in China, still lives in Beijing. A Research Fellow at École française d’ExtrêmeOrient, Guest Professor at Langzhou University, he has published, since the early 1970s, several books and articles in French, English and Chinese. He has also directed a dozen films listed in the CNRS Images catalogue. La revanche de Han Xin, un mystère Taoïste, filmed in Hunan Province, won the “Best Film” award at the 2009 International Anthropological Film Festival held in Kunming.
ANTHOLOGIE
Les Penseurs Libéraux Liberal Thinkers
September 2012 - 1200 pages
Liberalism’s founding texts, from Milton (1608-1674) to Aron (19051983) and Nozick (1938-2002) Liberalism is everywhere and nowhere. Its omnipresence in public debate is characterised by a conceptual vagueness which does not allow its role and influence in our societies to be clearly grasped. It remains a poorly defined subject whose theoretical foundations and thematic diversity are misunderstood. The purpose of this work, unmatched to date in terms of the scope and diversity of its corpus, is to convey what liberalism is in all of its dimensions – not only economic, but also philosophical, political, moral and cultural – and, drawing from source texts, to give its founding thinkers an opportunity to express their views. This book offers readers: A choice of more than one hundred texts representing all of the liberal schools of thought and opinions from the Renaissance to the present day. Here, you will find classical writings (of Smith, Kant, Bentham, Tocqueville, Spencer, Hayek) and many other even more original and unconventional texts (by Jurieu, Courier, Cobden, Guyot, Oppenheimer, Croce, etc.). Many of them had never been found previously. A totally new genealogy of the word “liberalism”; An exhaustive dictionary of liberal authors; Some “shortcuts” documenting and expanding knowledge of liberalism’s notions and figures while using critical approaches and intellectual excursions off the beaten track.
Philosopher and essayist Alain Laurent is the Director of the “Bibliothèque classique de la liberté” and “Penseurs de la liberté” collections at Les Belles Lettres. Vincent Valentin, a Senior Lecturer at Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I - École de droit de la Sorbonne), teaches at Sciences Po, Paris.
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Guides Belles Lettres des civilisations Directed by Jean-Noël ROBERT
The «Guides Belles Lettres des Civilisations» Collection takes readers on a journey through time and space (to Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China and Japan). These books were written for students, people interested in history and civilisations, and inveterate travellers… These practical and analytical general education works on the major ancient civilisations of which we still possess a written record provide readers with the keys they need to comprehend ancient texts, history books, or help them to decipher allusions made, and to grasp their complexities. These books, which are organized in a practical manner, can be used in three ways: they can be read straight through (like a typical book) to identify the various aspects of the civilisation being presented, the reader can use the very detailed Table of Contents to directly refer to one of the topic headings comprising each chapter, or the reader may consult the comprehensive index to quickly pinpoint specific information. The maps, tables, and diagrams also enable the reader to focus on essential facts. A selective and updated bibliography allows any reader who so desires to conduct even more thorough research. «Guides Belles Lettres des Civilisations» is not a set of dictionaries. In these books, all documented facts are explained in the context of the specific mentality of each civilisation considered, because it is impossible to understand an historical event, a moral law, or the character of an historical figure if no attempt is made to explain the values that inspired them.
Déjà publiés Already published • Rome • La Chine classique • La Grèce classique • L’Islande médiévale • L’Inde classique • L’Empire Ottoman • La Mésopotamie • L’Espagne médiévale • La France au Moyen Âge • Les Khmers
Forthcoming title
• La Russie médiévale • Venise au Moyen Âge • Le Siam • Les Mayas • Les Étrusques • Les Gaulois • La Birmanie • L’Amérique espagnole • Le Viêtnam ancien • La Perse antique
• Carthage • Le Japon d’Édo • Byzance • La Palestine • Québec • Les Incas • Les Aztèques • Pétra • La Corée du Choson • L’Amérique au XVIIIe siècle
• La Mongolie de Gengis Khan (already sold in Russia)
Series sold in Russia Many titles previously sold in Romania, Serbia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan and Greece
August 2012 - 256 pages
The first synthesis since the ethnological work done by Jean Malaurie Keeping an open mind towards the unexpected, caring about the natural environment, and the quality of interpersonal relationships, sharing, humour – these are but a few of the keys presented in this book to help readers better grasp how the Inuit express their history, society and place in the world, the future, climate change and industrial development. Their voices coming to us from Alaska, the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, reveal a modern-day civilisation richer than we can even begin to imagine.
GUIDES BELLES L ETTRES DES CIVILISATIONS
Les Inuit The Inuit
Michèle Therrien is an ethnologist and Full Professor at Institut national
des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). The subject of her courses and research is the Inuit language and culture. She has spent time in Alaska, the Canadian Arctic and Greenland on multiple occasions.
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GUIDES BELLES L ETTRES DES CIVILISATIONS
L’Angleterre élisabéthaine Elizabethan England
September 2012 - 300 pages
A cultural guide to a key period of England’s history
The reign of Elizabeth I (1559-1603) is often considered to have been a Golden Age. Even though the term is exaggerated, even mythical, the period nonetheless corresponds to the blossoming of a civilization in a number of artistic, as well as economic, social and political areas – so much so that the Elizabethan era can be deemed to have been the founding period of the future British Empire. This book examines that paradoxical span of time which was both a Golden Age and an era that gave rise to our modern world, offering readers a complete panorama in all fields of literary, artistic, institutional and scientific endeavour.
Henri Suhamy, an ENS graduate who holds an Agrégation and a PhD, is Professor Emeritus at Université Paris-Ouest, a laureat of the French Academy and a member of the Vallée aux Loups Prize reading committee. He notably co-translated the Walter Scott volume in the Pléiade Collection (Gallimard, 2007).
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A selection of Foreign Rights
Pierre Vidal-Naquet Atlantis : Brief history of a platonic myth
Thucydide The Peloponnesian War
Vyshaya Shkola Ekonomiki (Russia)
Martin Fontes (Brazil)
Jacqueline de Romilly History and Reason in Thucydides’ Works
Youval Rotman Slaves and Slavery. The Mediterranean World from Antiquity to the Middle ages
Cornell University Press (U.S.A.)
Harvard University Press (U.S.A.)
Damascius Treaty of First Principles
Jean-NoĂŤl Robert Pleasures in Rome
China CITIC Press (China)
Odoya (Italie)
TITRES RÉCEMMENT VENDUS Previously sold rights
Suzanne SAID, Approches de la mythologie grecque (Italie) Emilia MASSON, Les douze dieux de l’immortalité (Serbie) Marie-Dominique EVEN, La Mongolie de Gengis Kahn (Russie) Lucian BOIA, Hégémonie ou déclin de la France (Roumanie) Raymond ARON, La dimension de la conscience historique (Chine) Marcel BATAILLON, Les Jésuites dans l’Espagne du XVIe (Mexique) Philippe AMIEL, Des cobayes et des hommes (Mexique) Jacqueline de ROMILLY, La douceur dans la pensée grecque (Chine) Pierre CASSOU-NOGUÈS, Hilbert (Brazil) Jacqueline de ROMILLY, Histoire et raison chez Thucydide (U.S.A.) DAMASCIUS, Traité des premiers principes (U.S.A.) Youval ROTMAN, Les esclaves et l’esclavage (U.S.A) Pierre VIDAL-NAQUET, L’Atlantide, petite histoire d’un mythe platonicien (England)
Backlist available on : http://www.lesbelleslettres.com/foreignrights/