Suicide (Paperback)

~ Emile Durkheim (Author), George Simpson (Editor), John A. Spaulding (Translator) "THERE are two sorts of extra-social causes to which one may, a priori, attribute an influence on the suicide-rate; they are organic-psychic dispositions and the..." (more)
Key Phrases: conjugal anomy, matrimonial selection, suicidogenetic currents, Brierre de Boismont, Lower Austria, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

' - Suicide is one of the great classics of sociology. Although it is now more than a century old, it remains the most significant work on suicide ever produced.'

'Durkheim's great books are dedicated to the proposition that society transcends the individual: that our beliefs, values, dispositions and desires are often products of social forces and structures we poorly understand.' - Financial Times

'One of the acutest and most brilliant sociologists.' - Bronislaw Malinowski

- Suicide is one of the great classics of sociology. Although it is now more than a century old, it remains the most significant work on suicide ever produced.

Durkheims great books are dedicated to the proposition that society transcends the individual: that our beliefs, values, dispositions and desires are often products of social forces and structures we poorly understand. - Financial Times

One of the acutest and most brilliant sociologists. - Bronislaw Malinowski --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

One of Durkheim's most important works, serving as a model in social theory. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #68,615 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #24 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Death & Grief > Suicide
  #68 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Customs & Traditions

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 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" (Seattle, USA) - See all my reviews

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.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Charlotte Ann Hu (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best and first tutorial to the sociology, February 6, 2004

By	Masahiko OKAZAKI (Kochi, JAPAN) - See all my reviews

Durkheim says at the beginning; the sociology is the current science, but nobody knows what it is. Even now, his words sound contemporary. This study aims at introducing the necessity and importance of the sociology to the public, but not at sophisticatedly professional people.
It matches the orientation of the primary students to study the sociology, because the preliminary knowledge isn�ft necessary. Actually, I could read this book at the first year of the university without any sociological knowledge. After finishing to read the first part, which proves that the suicide isn�ft the psychological phenomenon, but the sociological, you can investigate the present situation as he did in the 19th century by using the statistics of the international organization like WHO. You will find the manipulation of the statistics not only easy, but also important with Durkheim�fs tutorial. It may be your first experience of the scientific study at the society.
I can recommend it to the youth.