A Durkheimian Quest

<p> Durkheim in his very role as a 'founding father' of a new social science sociology has become like a figure in an old religious painting enshrouded in myth and encrusted in layers of thick impenetrable varnish. This book undertakes detailed up-to-date investigations of Durkheim's work in an effort to restore its freshness and reveal it as originally created. These investigations explore his particular ideas within an overall narrative of his initial problematic search for solidarity how it became a quest for the sacred and how at the end of his life he embarked on a project for a new great work on ethics. A theme running through this is his concern with a modern world in crisis and his hope in social and moral reform. Accordingly the book concludes with a set of essays on modern times and on a crisis that Durkheim thought would pass but which now seems here to stay.</p>