There would be no need for sociology if everyone understood the social frameworks within which we operate. That we do have a connection to the larger picture is largely thanks to the pioneering thinker mile Durkheim. He recognized that, if anything can explain how we as individuals relate to society, then it is suicide: Why does it happen? What goes wrong? Why is it more common in some places than others? In seeking answers to these questions, Durkheim wrote a work that has fascinated, challenged and informed its readers for over a hundred years. Far-sighted and trail-blazing in its conclusions, Suicide makes an immense contribution to our understanding to what must surely be one of the least understandable of acts. A brilliant study, it is regarded as one of the most important books Durkheim ever wrote.
CONTENTS
Editor’s Preface ix
Editor’s Introduction xiii
Preface xxxiii
Introduction xxxix
BOOK I Extra-Social Factors 1
1 Suicide and Psychopathic States 3
2 Suicide and Normal Psychological States—
Race, Heredity 30
3 Suicide and Cosmic Factors 53
4 Imitation 74
BOOK II Social Causes and Social Types 95
1 How to Determine Social Causes and Social Types 97
2 Egoistic Suicide 105
3 Egoistic Suicide (continued) 126
4 Altruistic Suicide 175
5 Anomic Suicide 201
6 Individual Forms of the Different Types of Suicide 240
BOOK III General Nature of Suicide as a Social Phenomenon 259
1 The Social Element of Suicide 261
2 Relations of Suicide with Other Social Phenomena 291
3 Practical Consequences 328
Appendices 360
Index 367
