Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) was born in the northeastern French town of Épinal. He came from a long line of French Jews, though he would only go to rabbinical school for a few years before denouncing religion. Always a gifted student, Durkheim entered the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in 1879, studying the classics and reading early social theorists like Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte, who pushed early on for more scientific approaches to understanding social behavior. Disappointed with the French academic system, which had no social science curriculum, Durkheim taught philosophy in France before moving to Germany and completing his dissertation in 1886. Durkheim’s dissertation later became The Division of Labor in Society, forever setting a high benchmark for sociology graduate students after him. In 1887, he married Louise Dreyfus, with whom he had two children.
Always productive, Durkheim published some of the most influential works in classical sociology at a fast clip, including Division of Labor in Society in 1892, Rules of Sociological Method in 1895, and Suicide, his most famous work, in 1897. In 1902, he was appointed to a faculty position at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he would remain as an influential teacher and scholar. In addition to becoming France’s first sociology professor, he would also go on to found its first sociology journal. It is no wonder he is often cited as the father of sociology.
Like Weber and Marx, he was also active in politics, oftentimes finding himself in the minority as a socialist sympathizer. As a Jew and a staunch supporter of social justice, Durkheim was active in the effort to overturn the conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish colonel wrongly accused of acting as a German spy. He was also critical of the rise of French nationalism at the onset of World War I, though his spirit wasn’t truly crushed until the death of his son André, who was killed in battle in 1915. It was a tragic event from which Durkheim...