Durkheim is widely regarded as one of the founders of sociology as a modern academic discipline, alongside Karl Mark and Max Weber.

Descended from a long line of rabbis, he established one of Europe's first university departments of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, and founded the journal L'Année sociologique in 1898.

• He developed influential concepts including social facts, collective consciousness, and anomie.

His bibliography includes: • The Division of Labour in Society (1893) • The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) • Suicide (1897) • The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)