Few scholars were as politically engaged as Pierre Bourdieu. It is all the more surprising that he did not dedicate a monograph to the state. Nevertheless, his intensive engagement with the topic is evidenced by his lectures at the Collège de France, which had a spectacular opening with "On the State." Bourdieu addresses both methodological and theoretical questions in the study of the state as a research object, as well as the historical genesis of this institution. He analyzes central distinctions such as that between public and private, as well as the influence of mass media. "On the State" is a major synthesis and Bourdieu's principal work on political sociology.