Studies over the last twenty years show that understanding the social and economic forces that govern society and create vulnerability should have the same emphasis as understanding the physical causes of vulnerability.

The transformation of Western civilization into a planetary society of information and communication compels us to pose some philosophical and political questions about the influence of these new technologies on education. This author, a philosopher, journalist, literary critic, and also a member of the board of Les Temps Modernes, has concluded that Information Science and Internet do represent grave dangers for education, since they rather show us a way of avoiding the teacher and teaching (“how not to teach”) than help teach.

In the tradition of C. Wright Mills and Irving Goffman, this monograph brings current research and insight to a social science research area famed for its fissiparous polemical battles. Sperber surveys the field from Durkheim to the present and discusses both the origins of the Radical and neo-Marxist perspective as well as the mainstream, functionalist school of research.

Professor Collie has studied and written about Sir Roderick Murchison in several monographs. This study deals with Murchison and the wider and more general activity of scientific travels in the mid 19th C. This work introduces the reader to the practices of intellectual and cultural exchange in Continental Europe. These exchanges, despite the political pressures that often mitigated against the free flow of ideas, were increased as steam power and telegraphs made there way from West to East and intrepid savants, such as the eminent geologist Muchison.

Climate change will cause Europe to lose much of its biodiversity as projected by a comprehensive study on future butterfly distribution. The Climatic Risk Atlas of European Butterflies predicts northward shifts in potential distribution area of many European butterfly species. As early warning indicators of environmental change, butterflies are a valuable tool to assess overall climate change impact and to provide some indication on the chances to come nearer to the target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010 set by the EU Heads of State in 2001.

This is a long awaited study of Balkan entomology for the professional as well as the enthusiast. Wartime conditions have prevailed in Serbia until the last few years. Now remote areas and border areas long off limits are fully explored for their butterfly potential. Survival rates and ecological conditions discussed as well as the first complete survey in over 20 years. CD included. Entire work is in English.

Distributed with cooperation of Pensoft.

“No book could be more timely then The Decline of Nature. LaFreniere offers an in-depth analysis of the fundamental issues that must be faced if solutions for environmental crisis are to be found. His arguments are a refreshing alternative to the superficial policy proposals of politicians and the glib reporting of the mass media. — The Decline of Nature is a masterful critique of the stories that own us. LaFreniere’s analytical effort is a veritable tour de force.”
From the Foreword by Professor Max Oelschlaeger, Northern Arizona University