The Nature of Sociology, Paperback

Having taken over the leadership of the French school of sociology after the death of his uncle, Emile Durkheim, in 1917, Mauss, celebrated author of The Gift, re-launched the flagship journal, the Ann e sociologique. Here are two of Mauss's most significant statements on the social sciences. The first, written with Fauconnet, outlines the methodological orientations of the school. The second examines the internal organization of sociology as a division of intellectual labor. The essays are of interest to anthropologists as well as sociologists for Mauss, like Durkheim, did not distinguish in detail the two disciplines.

Mike Gane is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University. He has published widely on Durkheimian sociology, on Baudrillard, and his has edited two collections on Foucault. His recent writings have concerned Comte, Marx, Mauss, Lyotard, Canguilhem, Baudrillard, Derrida, and Virilio.