Malcolm DeBevoise Books

This volume features over two hundred entries by prominent intellectuals from the French- and English-speaking world, serving as an authoritative guide to twentieth-century French thought. Its unparalleled scope and depth encompass critiques of key figures, movements, and publications that shaped diverse fields, including history, psychoanalysis, film, literary theory, and economics. Contributors explore developments in French thought on topics like pacifism, fashion, gastronomy, technology, and urbanism. More than a reference work, it offers original insights into various subjects. Notable contributors include influential French thinkers and scholars from the U.S., U.K., and Canada, who have played crucial roles in the evolution and dissemination of French ideas. The book features pairings such as Etienne Balibar on Althusser, Judith Butler on Hegel, and Julia Kristeva on Proust. It is organized into four parts: Movements and Currents, covering major schools of thought; Themes, focusing on defining ideas of the century; Intellectuals, providing critical accounts of figures like Derrida and Foucault; and Dissemination, addressing influential journals and media. This comprehensive work captures the richness of twentieth-century French intellectual life.

In 2010, the French mathematician Cedric Villani received the Fields Medal, the most coveted prize in mathematics, in recognition of a proof that he devised with his close collaborator Clement Mouhot to explain one of the most surprising theories in classical physics. Birth of a Theorem is Villani's own account of the years leading up to the award. It invites readers inside the mind of a great mathematician as he wrestles with the most important work of his career. But you don't have to understand nonlinear Landau damping to love Birth of a Theorem. It doesn't simplify or overexplain; rather, it invites readers into a collaboration. Villani's diaries, e-mails, and musings enmesh you in the process of discovery. You join him in unproductive lulls and late- night breakthroughs. You're privy to dining-hall conversations at the world's greatest research institutions. Villani shares his favorite songs, his love of manga, and the imaginative stories he tells his children. In mathematics, as in any creative work, it is the thinker's whole life that propels discovery-- and with Birth of a Theorem, Cedric Villani welcomes you into his.