Quelles images évoquent les tropiques sinon un ensemble de stéréotypes hérités du colonialisme ? C'est ce contre quoi s'élève Francis Hallé, défenseur d'une conception des basses latitudes fort singulière ; non seulement les régions tropicales constituent une référence dans de nombreux domaines (biologie, techniques agricoles, climat), mais elles auraient aussi un rôle majeur à jouer dans le domaine économique. D'où cette question : pourquoi cette inégalité économique persistante entre tropiques et latitudes tempérées ? L'auteur tente d'y répondre en avançant une hypothèse biologique à l'origine des différences comportementales qui influencent profondément les structures psychologiques, les progrès scientifiques et les constructions sociales... Essai d'un homme de sciences autant que d'un homme de lettres, La Condition tropicale est avant tout un ardent plaidoyer pour les tropiques.

Biometeorology is based on the proceedings of the Second International Bioclimatological Congress, held at The Royal Society of Medicine, London in September 1960. This book is a collection of selected reports from participating members of The International Society of Biometeorology. The compendium covers a wide range of issues related to the study of the direct and indirect interrelations between the geophysical and geochemical factors of the atmospheric environment and living organisms: plants, animals, and human. The book is divided into four main sections; themes are selected for the congress. The first theme covers topics on high altitude bioclimatology such as the physiological aspects of life at extreme altitudes. The second theme is about tropical bioclimatology or aspects of plant and animal life in tropical climates. The third deals with bioclimatological classifications, which is about the relations between the climate and the distribution of the living species on the Earth. The fourth theme, meteoro-pathological forecasting, discusses the consequences of anticipated meteorological conditions and weather types on living organisms. The text will be of use to biologists, health professionals, zoologists, botanists, agriculturists, sociologists, meteorologists, and ecologists.

This book sets out to investigate the process of agrarian change from new angles and with new results. It starts on firm ground rather than from abstract economic theory. Upon its initial appearance, it was heralded as "a small masterpiece, which economic historians should read--and not simply quote"--Giovanni Frederico, Economic History Services. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth remains a breakthrough in the theory of agricultural development. In linking ethnography with economy, developmental studies reached new heights. Whereas "development" had been seen previously as the transformation of traditional communities by the introduction (or imposition) of new technologies, Ester Boserup argues that changes and improvements occur from within agricultural communities, and that improvements are governed not simply by external interference, but by those communities themselves Using extensive analyses of the costs and productivity of the main systems of traditional agriculture, Ester Boserup concludes that technical, economic, and social changes are unlikely to take place unless the community concerned is exposed to the pressure of population growth.