Suicide [Paperback]

Emile Durkheim (Author), George Simpson (Editor), John A. Spaulding (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0684836327 | ISBN-13: 978-0684836324 | Publication Date: February 1, 1997

One of Durkheim's most important works, serving as a model in social theory.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Even for the psychoanalytically oriented reader this book holds more than merely historical interest.  One cannot help being impressed by the wealth of knowledge and the perspicacity revealed in it, and there have certainly been few more compact presentations of socio-psychological problems…Psychoanalysts no less than sociologists will find the study of Durkheim’s book instructive and rewarding.  The editor and translators are to be commended for making the work available in an excellent and remarkably lucid translation.” —Psychoanalytic Quarterly

"Durkheim's contribution was a very considerable one...No investigation of the subject can disregard his views."—American Journal of Psychiatry

About the Author

Émile Durkheim (1858 - 1917). One of the founding fathers of modern sociology. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684836327
• ISBN-13: 978-0684836324
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Death & Grief > Suicide

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Synthesis of intimately personal and powerfully public, December 17, 2001

By 

Charlotte A. Hu (San Antonio, TX, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suicide (Paperback)

Emile Durkheim's classic work tells us more than just details about suicide. Studying a powerfully individual phenomenon from a sociological perspective was, in its own right, an impressive undertaking. But what interests me more for sociology of media is the way Durkheim handled statistics. In the first chapter, he gives a series of examples that illustrate the danger in placing too much unexamined value in numerical data. He shows first that married people commit suicide more than singles, but then notes that single people include children who are unlikely to commit suicide. Therefore this data does not necessarily indicate a causal relationship between marriage and suicide. He adjusts the data, taking only people of marriage age and computes the data again. This time, single people commit suicide more than married people. However, Durkheim then notes that single people will automatically include a larger portion of mentally or physically defunct people. He therefore concludes that there is not sufficient data to make a conclusion about a causal relationship between suicide and marital status. This is really little more than mental exercise, but it is a critical one for any one employing survey methods and statistical analysis. The researcher must be vigilant in analyzing data to ensure avoiding errors in logic.
Durkheim's study in sociology contributes much more than this detail to the social sciences, but for my purposes of analyzing the sociology of media, this is the most critical point.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating&Intelligent...From a man, who loved his subject, March 24, 2000

By 

"zara_azari" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Suicide (Paperback)

Emile Durkheim is called a Father of Sociology, and rightly so. He was the first man to work on all of the problems and issues, unresolved by other known sciences at the time ( in 19-century), to combine many of the already known scientific methods in one, and to call it sociology. Surely, there were other theorists, his contemporaries, who were starting to wander in the same direction at the same time with Durkheim, but he was the one, who put his own and other people's theories to practice. That is what "Suicide" is all about: gathering data and putting it to test with the theory (suicide, being the subject of the study in this case, of course). The best part about Durkheim's work presented in "Suicide" is that it is still an incredibly potent and groundbreaking manuscript. One, who reads it today, can't help but notice that human nature and human problems have largely remained the same: they are universal and ageless and they still need to be studied by competent sociologists.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PIONEERING WORK IN SOCIOLOGY, November 15, 2003

By 

Denis Benchimol Minev "Amazonia" (Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Suicide (Paperback)

This is the work considered the pioneer of modern sociology, with its author hailed the father of sociology. The innovative nature of the work lies in putting together all the methods of social analysis available at his time and providing a comprehensive view of the nature of suicide in society.

Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, Durkheim provides the basis for the future development of sociology. He brings science to the study of society, by developing a hypothesis, gathering data and testing the hypothesis. He proves the powerful influence of society on the behavior of individuals, which, though obvious today, was not a clear conclusion at the time.

This is a basic reading for anyone interested in sociology. However, anyone interested in the application of scientific methods to society and other non-traditional fields for science would also find it very useful.