Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) was born in Bordeaux on January 6 and spent his academic career as Professor of the History and Sociology of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux Law Faculty and Professor in its Institute of Political Studies. His more than fifty books and hundreds of articles range across Christian theology, ethics, and biblical studies as well as sociological analysis and critique of mass media and communication, bureaucracy, and modern law and politics. He died in Bordeaux on May 19.

Technique: Ellul's Central Thesis

At the heart of his sociological works is his study of technology or, the term he preferred, Technique (la technique). Indeed Ellul initially became widely known in the English-speaking world for The Technological Society (1964). Its intellectual significance and originality derives in part from its argument being conceived twenty years before the original French edition (La Technique [1954]) when, after reading Karl Marx's Capital, Ellul (a...