Synopses & Reviews
A classic book about the phenomenon of suicide and its social causes written by one of the world’s most influential sociologists.
Emile Durkheim’s Suicide addresses the phenomenon of suicide and its social causes. Written by one of the world’s most influential sociologists, this classic argues that suicide primarily results from a lack of integration of the individual into society. Suicide provides readers with an understanding of the impetus for suicide and its psychological impact on the victim, family, and society.
Review
"Even for the psychoanalytically oriented reader this book holds more than merely historical interest. One cannot help being impressed by the wealth of knowledge and the perspicacity revealed in it, and there have certainly been few more compact presentations of socio-psychological problems…Psychoanalysts no less than sociologists will find the study of Durkheim’s book instructive and rewarding. The editor and translators are to be commended for making the work available in an excellent and remarkably lucid translation.” —Psychoanalytic Quarterly
Review
"Durkheim's contribution was a very considerable one...No investigation of the subject can disregard his views."—American Journal of Psychiatry
Review
"Even for the psychoanalytically oriented reader this book holds more than merely historical interest. One cannot help being impressed by the wealth of knowledge and the perspicacity revealed in it, and there have certainly been few more compact presentations of socio-psychological problems…Psychoanalysts no less than sociologists will find the study of Durkheim’s book instructive and rewarding. The editor and translators are to be commended for making the work available in an excellent and remarkably lucid translation.” —Psychoanalytic Quarterly
Review
"Durkheim's contribution was a very considerable one...No investigation of the subject can disregard his views."—American Journal of Psychiatry
Synopsis
One of Durkheim's most important works, serving as a model in social theory.
About the Author
David Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology. Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity; an era in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being. His first major sociological work was The Division of Labor in Society (1893). In 1895, he published his Rules of the Sociological Method and set up the first European department of sociology, becoming France's first professor of sociology. In 1898, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique.