On the State: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1989 – 1992

Synopsis

What is the nature of the modern state? How did it come into being and what are the characteristics of this distinctive field of power that has come to play such a central role in the shaping of all spheres of social, political and economic life? In this major work the great sociologist pierre bourdieu addresses these fundamental questions. Modifying max weber s famous definition, bourdieu defines the state in terms of the monopoly of legitimate physical and symbolic violence, where the monopoly of symbolic violence is the condition for the possession and exercise of physical violence.