Bernard T. Harrison

Nature Bent

Durkheim: Essays on Morals and Education

By

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.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'The erecting and immediate destruction of a series of straw men rather detracts from what is for the most part an… ,
    • RT : A magnificent demolition job on this "acid laced tirade...unpleasantly self-obsessed...self pitying polemic...book… ,
    • 'Seventy years on, the time we have left to gather such first-hand testimony is running out.' John Keay on the sig… ,
    • The author 'seethes with contemptuous indignation at the shiny junk that an unregulated construction industry dumps… ,
    • 'The physical courage he demonstrated as a young man [...] gave way to intellectual power; radical thought, gifted… ,
    • 'While Jane Austen didn’t perhaps achieve the full recognition that she deserved in her lifetime, even then she out… ,
    • 'All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And t… ,
    Follow Us