Emile Durkheim's "On Suicide" (1897) was a groundbreaking book in the field of sociology. Traditionally, suicide was thought to be a matter of purely individual despair but Durkheim recognized that the phenomenon had a social dimension. He believed that if anything can explain how individuals relate to society, then it is suicide: Why does it happen? What goes wrong? Why do certain social, religious or racial groups have higher incidences of suicide than others? As Durkheim explored these questions he became convinced that abnormally high or low levels of social integration lead to an increased likelihood of suicide. "On Suicide" was the result of his extensive research. Divided into three parts - individual reasons for suicide, social forms of suicide and the relation of suicide to society as a whole - Durkheim's revelations have fascinated, challenged and informed readers for over a century.

Author Biography

David Emile Durkheim (1858 - 1917) is known as one of the founders of modern sociology. Robin Buss is a journalist and translator. His most recent translations for Penguin include The Plague by Camus and The Black Tulip by Dumas. He lives in London. Richard Sennett is Professor of Sociology at the LSE and Bemis Professor of Social Sciences at MIT. His three most recent books are studies of modern capitalism: The Culture of the New Capitalism, (Yale, 2006), Respect in an Age of Inequality, (Penguin, 2003) and The Corrosion of Character, (Norton 1998). He is currently writing a book on craftmanship. Alexander Riley is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. He is the author of numerous articles on Durkheimian thought, including a contribution to The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim (Cambridge 2005) on the transgressive sacred, and the co-editor (with Philippe Besnard) of the correspondence of Durkheim's student Robert Hertz Un Ethnologue dans les tranche'es (CNRS E'ditions 2002.