Bibliografía: p. [515]-520. - índices

I am sociology. So proclaimed Bourdieu in the 1970s: a bold statement from one who was heir to Durkheim and Aron. Yet it was for Bourdieu that the Chair of Sociology was created in 1981 at the Collège de France. For his some thirty works and hundreds of articles enabled him to become the world's most influential French intellectual. No successor has taken his place since his death in 2002 at the age of 72.This son of a postman was according to those who knew him well a born sociologist. With a keen curiosity and a desire to understand what drives people, he would always practise a type of sociology based on fieldwork, empirical observation, and statistics (which he introduced into the field of social sciences). Yet he also littered his studies with philosophical references and allusions drawn from his remarkably broad culture, not to mention his debt owed to Lévi-Strauss. Omnipresent in ministerial cabinets as well as street demonstrations, active as an editor in publishing houses (Minuit, Seuil), he possessed all attributes of power, the very power that he denounced. Should we see him as no other than a poor young man thirsting for social revenge and power, yearning to succeed Sartre and his (pale) journalistic imitators in the role of the master of thought? Or should we believe in his sincere desire to be a thinker who was not only politically active but also effective?.