Bourdieu-in-the-Making: On the State and the Craft of Reflexive Sociology

On the State is the latest of Pierre Bourdieu’s posthumous publications to appear in English, following the release in January 2012 of the original French version, Sur l’État, in conjunction with a series of public colloquia marking the tenth anniversary of his passing. The volume is composed of the twenty-three lectures Bourdieu gave at the Collège de France over academic years 1989–1990, 1990–1991 and 1991–1992, and presents his first explicit and extensive engagement with the classical problem of ‘the state’ – a term he had very consciously avoided for over two decades.