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End of the line.

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FIRING BACK: AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF THE MARKET BY PIERRE BOURDIEU, TRANSLATED BY LOIC WACQUANT * NEW PRESS * 112 PAGES * $14.95

AT THE TIME OF PIERRE BOURDIEU'S death in January 2002, he stood as the dominant intellectual in France, if not in Europe. Only Jurgen Habermas in Germany, now age 74, is of the same stature, but Bourdieu's last years had turned him into far more of an activist as a visible opponent of the neoliberal dismantling of social protections.

Just as Puritan divines once preached an annual election sermon, every dominant French intellectual since Emile Zola has made a public pronouncement on the duties of intellectuals. Bourdieu's declaration could be expected to be different. He defined himself as a sociologist, not a philosopher. His most famous work anatomizes how thinkers, artists and educators establish superiority as dominant "cadres" even without appeal to money. His best-known book in this country, Distinction, could have been called Pretension. He was out to skewer pretense, with scientific precision. The book gave a drubbing to fellow intellectuals who...

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