An analytically brilliant, powerfully sustained exercise in comparative theorizing at the middle range. Daloz pushes the analysis of status distinction to a level it has never before achieved. Rethinking Social Distinction bristles with empirical insight and theoretical sophistication. - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University, US ... Read more By employing the inductive method, and through the judicious use of a wide-ranging number of examples, Professor Daloz explores all aspects of the phenomena of social distinction, without however falling into either the trap of ethnocentricism or reductionism. Indeed his careful and nuanced comparative approach to the study of distinction is an excellent antidote to the all-too-common universalistic models current in the field, and should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the topic. - Colin Campbell, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of York, UK Dealing with a quasi-universal topic, Daloz brilliantly uses comparatism across time and space, and across disciplinary and theoretical traditions. His remarkably informed analysis demonstrates how rigorous qualitative sociology can be. This is a most welcome contribution to those pioneering developments in some quarters of the French social sciences fortunately moving away from the normative perspectives of the previous decades. - Nathalie Heinich, CNRS Research Professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France Show Less