When French sociologist Loïc Wacquant signed up at a boxing gym in Chicago's South Side, he had never contemplated getting close to a ring, let alone climbing into it. Yet for three years he immersed himself among local fighters, amateur and professional alike. He learned the Sweet science of bruising, participating in all phases of the pugilist's strenuous preparation, from shadow-boxing drills to sparring to fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament. In this
experimental ethnography of incandescent intensity, the scholar-turned-boxer fleshes out Pierre Bourdieu's signal concept of habitus, deepening our theoretical grasp of human practice. And he supplies a model for a "carnal sociology" capable of capturing "the taste and ache of action."

This updated edition features a new preface and postface that elaborate upon Bourdieu's theory of habitus, demonstrating the ways in which habitus anchors both the method and theory in the book and to provide a geneaology of the concept. Arguably the best investigation of habitus in the field of sociology, Body and Soul continues to be a valuable resource for students and scholars of the social sciences.