" A country that seduces travellers with its unfalteringly familiar culture woven around cafe terraces, village-square markets and lace-curtained bistros with their plat du jour chalked on the board." Nicola Williams, Lonely Planet writer

As South Pacific correspondent for the prestigious Paris daily Le Monde, Florence de Changy revealed New Zealand in a way that French readers had rarely seen before. Snapshots de Nouvelle-Zélande now makes that viewpoint available to New zealanders, presenting 26 of De Changy's best articles translated into English, along with the original French.

De Changy's snapshots of New Zealand society reveal many of the people, customs and characteristics that make this country unique - from Sir Peter Blake to Nandor Tanczos, the America's cup to the All Blacks, women leaders to whale strandings, to mention a few. Wittily written, with plentiful colour photographs, this is a book that will amuse and enlighten both outsiders and insiders to New Zealand/Nouvelle-Zélande.

What happened to Africa so that the hope born of decolonization appears today as a mirage? The development model imposed by the West is certainly in question, but can we exonerate the African elites of any responsibility for worsening the poverty and violence that is hindering the creative energy of so many citizens of the black continent? From a lucid diagnosis, this book offers a wide range of innovative solutions that will enable Africans to take charge of their own development. basically pan-Africanist, Sanou MBaye pleads for an overcoming of nationalist and ethnic confinement so that the solidarity of peoples of the continent and those of his diaspora. It is in this soil that Africans will draw strength and hope to reclaim their identity undermined by centuries of domination. Fifty years after independence, to achieve its full potential, Africa can and must wake up.

Sarga Moussa, who works on Orientalism and the travelogue in French literature, compares Les Orientales to romantic voygaes here. and questions the geography of this poetic space.

This essay, contemporary with the beginnings of what will later be called the "new criticism" (represented by Roland Barthes or Maurice Blanchot) but also the first novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor or Claude Simon, is generally considered the first manifesto of the "new novel" (For a new novel by Robbe-Grillet will appear in 1963). It is above all a testimony on the literary debates under way in the post-war years, along with a document on the birth of a work considerable.

After the implosion of the Soviet origin, Cuba becomes one of those poor countries - like Haiti - one of those islands where misery and despair push some to risk their lives on a raft, others to choose illegality, theft or prostitution to survive. Sami Tchak's livrew is a serious and sometimes desperate reflection on the corrupting power of money in countries suffering from scarcity. It paints a terrible picture of the ideological, political and economic contractions suffered by the countries of the East yesterday, and which Cuba suffers today.

Will the decline of the American Empire take place? Yes, the demographer Emmanuel Todd answers in this brilliant essay against the current of ideas about "the hyper-power" of America. This hypothesis is based on the following observation: the United States can no longer live by their own production: "At the very moment when the world [...] is about to discover that it can do without America America realizes that it can no longer do without the world. " And the researcher relies brilliantly on a battery of data borrowed as much from the economy as from demography, anthropology and geostrategy to support his thesis. Economic dependence, democratic weakening, these are therefore the main symptoms of decline identified by the historian who, in 1976, had predicted the Soviet collapse solely on demographic observations. Signs that make it possible to understand in a movement that is paradoxical only in appearance why the United States is also active on the international scene. To symbolically retain the superpower status that it has in fact acquired since the end of the Second World War until the collapse of the Soviet empire, America must show its power on the ground. geostrategic. According to three principles: never definitively solve a problem; focus on micropowers; develop a military arsenal supposed to be unsurpassable. The fight against terrorism, the threats against the "axis of evil" and Iraq appear for what they are: pretexts. Of course, it is not for Emmanuel Todd to neglect the dangers of international terrorism and the threats it poses to the world. It's about understanding how the United States has become in less than a decade an obstacle to peace in the world. And to draw the contours of a world in which America will certainly always be a great power but one among others .-- Yves Fraillont.

A critique of the way that globalization had proceeded up to 2002, focusing largely on the East Asia Crisis and Russian Shock Therapy. Stiglitz argues that the policies enforced by the international financial institutions (the IMF takes the brunt of his criticisms) are politically, economically, and morally problematic. In their adherence to budget austerity and overemphasis on inflation, they eliminate the social safety nets that make radical economic/social reforms sustainable in the long term.

Man Jean Vilar, his adventure, his ambitions, his experiences and his heritage.

Vast expanses of wilderness, fertile plains, mysterious forests, ancient hills; a tranquil river where the song of the whale blends with the foghorn's plaintive call; a sparkling wealth of lakes, brooks and streams - thanks to all of this - Québec has been dubbed "La belle province"

Welcome to Québec City, the birthplace of New France. In 1608 Samuel de Champlain sailed up the St Lawrence to discover a rocky promontory at the confluence of the St Lawrence and St Charles River. On this site, a natural fortress as imposing as Gibraltar, he established the first city inn Canada, called Québec, from the Algonquin word Kébec "the place where the waters narrow"

"Plucked straight from a film set or a coffee-table book of picture-perfect, scenery, New Zealand is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The word "Wow!" will escape from your lips at least once a day."