In this memoir, a forensic psychiatrist chronicles her work with more than 80 serial killers and her thoughts on what compels them.Judging by appearances, Dr. Helen Morrison has an ordinary life in the suburbs of a major city. She has a physician husband, two children, and a thriving psychiatric clinic. But her life is more than that. She is one of the world's leading experts on serial killers, and has spent as many as four hundred hours alone in rooms with depraved...

From the sparkling islands of Hawaii to the restaurants of Paris to the snowy corners of Antarctica, Zoe goes up, up and away, making lots of new friends along the way. Follow her as she explores new planets and ancient lands, and learns something new on each of her incredible journeys.

From the sparkling islands of Hawaii and the restaurants of Paris to the ancient Egypt, Zoe goes up, up and away, making lots of new friends along the way. Follow her as she explores new planets and ancient lands, and learns something new on each of her incredible journeys.

In the first days of spring, birds undergo a spectacular metamorphosis. After a long winter of migration and peaceful coexistence, they suddenly begin to sing with all their might, varying each series of notes as if it were an audiophonic novel. They cannot bear the presence of other birds and begin to threaten and attack them if they cross a border, which might be invisible to human eyes but seems perfectly tangible to birds. Is this display of bird aggression just a pretence, a game that...

During the colonization of Africa, European colonists set about creating game reserves in Africa, convinced that they would find in Africa a nature that no longer existed in Europe. After independence, and with the help of UNESCO and the WWF, African leaders continued to 'protect' the same nature, a nature that the whole world wanted to be pristine, wild and without humans – a timeless Garden of Eden. The consequences of this story are well known: millions of Africans were expelled from th...

The distant past is commonly characterized in terms of dominant materials of the time – the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. Since the dawn of writing, however, characterizing eras in terms of materials has fallen by the wayside, and yet materials have continued to exert a powerful influence on our collective imagination.Viewed from this perspective, France in the period from 1815 to 1855 could be seen as the half-century of plaster. After the French Revolution, plaste...

In our busy, noisy world, we may find ourselves longing for silence. But what is silence exactly? Is it the total absence of sound? Or is it the absence of the sound created by humans – the kind of deep stillness you might experience in a remote mountain landscape covered in snow, far away from the bustle of human life?When we listen closely, silence reveals a neglected reality. Neither empty nor singular, silence is instead plentiful and multiple. In this book, eco-acoustic histor...

Rest occupies a space outside of sleep and alertness: it is a form of recuperation but also of preparation for what is to come, and is a need felt by human and animal alike. Through the centuries, different and conflicting definitions and forms of rest have blossomed, ranging from heavenly repose to what is prescribed for the modern affliction of burn-out. What has remained constant is its importance: long the subject of art and literature, everyone understands the need not to disturb the ...

A superyacht is a boat that exceeds 30 metres in length, with some surpassing even 100 metres—more than a football field. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there were about 2,000 of these vessels in the world; two decades and a financial crisis later, there are three times as many.Grégory Salle argues that these are not whimsical fads: on the contrary, luxury yachting highlights the social exclusivity of the wealthiest and the environmental waste they emit. Rather than ...

What does it mean to be gayfriendly? Having gay friends, supporting gay marriage, remaining unfazed when one’s son or daughter comes out? Going to gay bars or questioning one’s own sexual orientation? There is no single model of ‘gayfriendliness’, but rather different attitudes which vary according to age, sex, country and life circumstance.Acceptance of homosexuality has undeniably grown, and homosexuality is increasingly seen as one form of sexuality among others. But embedded in...

The story begins with a dream – the dream of Africa. Virgin forests, majestic mountains surrounded by savannas, vast plains punctuated with the rhythms of animal life where lions, elephants and giraffes reign as lords of nature, far from civilization – all of us carry such images in our heads, imagining Africa as a timeless Eden untouched by the ravages of modernity.But this Africa has never existed. The more we destroy nature here, the more we fantasize about it in Africa. Along w...

The migration crisis of recent years has elicited a double response: on the one hand, many states have responded by tightening border controls, in an attempt to restrict population movements, while on the other hand many citizens have responded by welcoming new arrivals, offering them shelter, food and whatever help they could provide. By so doing, they have re-awakened an old form of anthropology that was long-considered to be dead – that of hospitality.In this book, Agier develop...