Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist and anthropologist, passed away on January 23, 2002, at the age of 71. He was a renowned figure in the academic field, earning major recognition for his extensive writings on education, culture, and sociology. Bourdieu was born on August 1, 1930, in Denguin, in the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. After studying philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, he obtained a doctorate in sociology from the University of Paris. In addition to his academic accolades, Bourdieu is credited with pushing forward the study of French sociology. He wrote extensively on topics such as education, family, and gender and was an influential advocate for the field. His works—including Language and Symbolic Power (1991), The Social Structures of the Economy (1995) and Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (1998)—have been widely cited. He was the winner of numerous awards and honors, such as the Order of the Legion of Honour in 1987, the Balzan Prize in Sociology and Social Anthropology in 2000, and the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2001. He had also held the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme chair in sociology from 1995 until his passing. Bourdieu will be remembered for his immense contributions to the fields of sociology and anthropology, informed by his thoughtful and extensive scholarship.