Pierre Bourdieu's commitment to a reflexive sociology led him ineluctably to take on the final challenge of a self socio-analysis in which he recounts and analyses, more fully and intimately than ever before, his understanding of the trajectory that led him from the peasant world of Béarn, through sometimes painful years as a lyce boarder, as a student in 1950s Paris and as a conscript in the Algerian War, to the pinnacle of the French intellectual and academic world.

"This is not an autobiography," he said of this work but it reveals much of the hitherto implicit experience of his formative years, and gives precious insights into his relationships with Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron, Michel Foucault and many others, which deepen our understanding of his unique contribution to sociology and anthropology.