Founder of conservatism, precursor of sociology, creator of political ultramontanism and master of the French language, Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) made significant contributions to the history of social, political, and religious ideas. Whether predicting the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, writing pages judged by the literary critic Sainte-Beuve as among ‘the most sublime ever written in a human language’, or composing the first treatise in the sociology of religion, Maistre was a figure of fascination in his time who remains thought-provoking in ours.