Bernard T. Harrison
Nature Bent
Durkheim: Essays on Morals and Education
By W. S. Pickering (ed) (Translated by H. L. Sutcliffe)
Routledge 240pp £9.50 order from our bookshop
This book brings together translations of essays, reviews and other items by the pioneer French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), together with two substantial introductory essays by William Pickering on Durkheim’s contributions to thought on ‘morals’ and ‘education’. On the face of it, the price of the book makes it hardly likely to attract any but librarians and the keenest devotees of Durkheim; but Pickering’s linking essays help to make the book a worthwhile buy, in giving an effective shape and unity to a collection. of writings which are on the whole a series of obiter scripta, rather than linked by much continuity of argument.
Readers of Durkheim’s famous treatise on Suicide will have recognised how this founder of modern educational sociology often adds a fascinating personal dimension to his discourse, giving it extra qualities of vigour and frankness. Such qualities are present in ‘the best parts of this new volume, especially in his ‘discourse
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Within hours, the news spread. A grimy gang of desperadoes had been captured just in time to stop them setting out on an assassination plot of shocking audacity.'
@katheder on the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/butchers-knives-treason-and-plot
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger