Distinction

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste is a book by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002). It was originally published in French in 1979 and was translated into English by Richard Nice and published in English for the first time in 1984. Distinction is Bourdieu’s cultural-sociological study of the French middle class of the 1960s. Bourdieu was preoccupied with the taste, or consumer preference, of this social class. The book earned the International Sociological Association’s nomination as one of the 10 most important works of sociology published in the 20th century.