Gabriel Tarde was, alongside Emile Durkheim, a central figure in sociology in France during his lifetime. In his main work "The Laws of Imitation" from 1890, he outlines a sociology that derives the explanation of any social change from the concept of "imitation": "Society is imitation!" Instead of focusing on individuals and groups, Tarde concentrates on the actions and ideas by which these individuals and groups are classified. From them, he reads the variables and regularities that form the pattern of the social. Tarde examines these laws and the fundamental role of imitation in social phenomena through a wealth of concrete examples from all areas of society. The result is a masterpiece of sociology, whose influence can be traced, among others, to Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, and Peter Sloterdijk.