Translator's Preface

The text used for this translation is the 1895 edition of Monadologie et Sociologie, in Gabriel Tarde (1895) Essais et mélanges sociologiques, Lyon, A. Storck / Paris, G. Masson, pp. 309-389. This text is a reworked and expanded version of an article published in 1893 as 'Monads and Social Science' ('Les Monades et la Science Sociale'), Revue Internationale de Sociologie, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 157-173 and vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 231-246. The earlier version corresponds to chapters I, IV, V and VI of the 1895 text. A small amount of material is in the earlier version of the text but not the later version; this is given in the notes to this translation (minor stylistic variants between the two are not noted).

Two modern editions of the original text are available: Eric Alliez (ed.), Le Plessis, Institut Synthélabo, 1999; M. Bergeron (ed.), Québec, Cégep, 2002, available at http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/tarde_gabriel/monadologie/monadologie.html).

These editions give no sources of Tarde's citations; J. Sarnes and M. Schillmeier's German translation (Gabriel Tarde, Monadologie und Soziologie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 2009) gives a few but not all. I have attempted to trace all the citations, without complete success; however, it is likely that some passages marked as citations in the text are paraphrases rather than verbatim quotes. References given are to English translations where available.

Tarde uses the masculine gender throughout when referring to persons in general; the translation conforms to this usage.

I would like to thank Isaac Marrero-Guillamón and Dan Cryan for their assistance.