DISTINCTION (ROUTLEDGE) (PB)

Pierre Bourdieu’s book brilliantly illuminates the social pretentions of the middle classes, focusing on the tastes and preferences of the French bourgeoisie. We constantly choose between what we find aesthetically pleasing, and what we consider tacky or ugly. This fascinating work argues that the social world functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.