author
Émile Durkheim
1858–1917
A founding figure in sociology, he explored how modern society holds together and why people sometimes feel unmoored within it. His books turned big questions about religion, work, law, and community into a new way of studying social life.
4 Audiobooks
Le Suicide: Etude de Sociologie
by Émile Durkheim
Éducation et sociologie
by Émile Durkheim
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
by Émile Durkheim
A szociológia módszere
by Émile Durkheim
About the author
Born in Épinal, France, on April 15, 1858, Émile Durkheim became one of the key thinkers who established sociology as an academic discipline. He taught at the University of Bordeaux, where he held one of France's earliest university posts in sociology, and later worked in Paris at the Sorbonne.
Durkheim is best known for major works including The Division of Labor in Society, The Rules of Sociological Method, Suicide, and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Across these books, he argued that social facts—shared rules, beliefs, and institutions—shape individual life in powerful ways, and he developed influential ideas about solidarity, anomie, and the social meaning of religion.
He also founded the journal L'Année sociologique, which helped build a community of researchers around the new field. Durkheim died in Paris on November 15, 1917, but his work remains central to how sociology studies community, morality, education, and the pressures of modern life.