Gabriel de Tarde

Born in Sarlat, France, in 1843, Gabriel Tarde trained in law and worked for years as a magistrate before becoming widely known as a sociologist and criminologist. Reference works agree that he later served in the French Ministry of Justice and taught modern philosophy at the Collège de France.

Tarde is remembered for arguing that social life grows from person-to-person interaction rather than from society acting as a force entirely above individuals. He is especially associated with the ideas of imitation and invention, and with debates that set his approach against that of Émile Durkheim.

Although he died in Paris in 1904, his writing has had a long afterlife. Readers interested in the history of sociology, criminology, crowd psychology, or the spread of ideas often return to Tarde as an original and surprisingly modern voice.