Sketch for a Self-Analysis - Tapa dura

"This slim volume, more accessible than anything in Bourdieu's oeuvre, can be read in one session. But its value lies in each further reading, alone or with students, to gain a sense that, as a result of reflexivity and social self-analysis, there was a different sociologist using his concepts in different ways across his works." Journal of Sociology "Not just a book for students in French studies or in literature; social scientists - and especially those who do not know or appreciate Bourdieu - will find many examples of his unique sociological thinking." Sociology

'This is not an autobiography.' Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu's commitment to a reflexive sociology led him ineluctably to take on the final challenge of a self socio-analysis in which he recounts and analyses, more fully and intimately than ever before, his understanding of the trajectory that led him from the peasant world of Barn, through sometimes painful years as a lyce boarder, as a student in 1950s Paris and as a conscript in the Algerian War, to the pinnacle of the French intellectual and academic world. 'This is not an autobiography,' he said of this work but it reveals much of the hitherto implicit experience of his formative years, and gives precious insights into his relationships with Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron, Michel Foucault and many others, which deepen our understanding of his unique contribution to sociology and anthropology.