Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot

The Pincons are leading researchers at the National Center for Scholarly Research in Paris.Breaking with the pack, they leave their fellow sociologists to explain what is not working, at the bottom of the heap, and focus instead on what is working in society — and evidently working extremely well, for generation upon generation, for the very few at the top.The Pincons participated in New York University’s Spring 2002 colloquium on evolutions in urban society. Recent works focus on the well-known chateaux of France and the lives of their far from well-known owners, and on the demographic distinctions that make Paris such a tantalizing metropolis.