Suicide - A Study in Sociology (Hardcover, 2nd edition)

How can difference in the rate of suicide be explained? That is the central question in this classic work by the father of modern sociology, Emile Durkheim. What interested Durkheim was not so much the reasons for an individual's suicide, but why one society had a higher rate of suicide than another and why there were variations between social classes or religious groups. In his research he used the then radical approach of applying the methods of natural science to the study of society. His conclusion was that it was the degree of social cohesion in a particular group and the extent to which members of that group felt they belonged that so affected the rate of suicide. So far sighted were his ideas that this wonderful work has served as a model of social theory for more than a hundred years.