Die Gesetze der Nachahmung

During his lifetime, Gabriel Tarde was, along with Emile Durkheim, the main figure of sociology in France. In his major work The Laws of Imitation of 1890, he drafted a sociology that derives the explanation of any social change from the concept of "imitation": "Society is imitation! Instead of focusing on individuals and groups, Tarde focuses on the actions and ideas by which these individuals and groups are classified. From them he reads off the variables and regularities that form the pattern of the social. Tarde examines these regularities and the fundamental role of imitation for social phenomena in general, using a wealth of concrete examples from all areas of society. The result is a masterpiece of sociology, whose influence on Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Peter Sloterdijk, and others has been felt.