Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He came from a Jewish background and enrolled in a rabbinical school before choosing a different academic path and pursuing a largely secular life. Durkheim is regarded as a founder of the modern academic discipline of sociology, which before his career had largely been considered under the umbrella of other disciplines like anthropology. In addition to The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, published in 1912, Durkheim was known for several previous books, all of which were concerned with sociological (though not necessarily religious) issues.

His 1893 book, The Division of Labor in Society, was influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte and posited a developmental view of human societies, from “primitive” ones marked by “basic” technologies and homogeneous roles, to “advanced” societies with more sophisticated technologies and greater distribution of roles in a complex division of labor. This developmental division did not necessarily imply for Durkheim that “advanced” societies exhibited progress in every area of social life; rather, he suggested that the move from a “primitive” society to an “advanced” one could be marked by serious crises and social disorder. This relatively positive view of the social benefits of so-called “primitive” societies is a feature also to be noted in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.