Originally published in 1992, this book, written by one of the world's leading experts on Simmel, provides a fascinating set of insights into a thinker who is fast becoming recognized as the sociologist of modernity; an indispensible resource in confronting post-modernity. It examines the relevance of his work in relation to contemporary debates on culture, aesthetics and modernity.

Originally published in 1992, this book, written by one of the world's leading experts on Simmel, provides a fascinating set of insights into a thinker who is fast becoming recognized as the sociologist of modernity; an indispensible resource in confronting post-modernity. It examines the relevance of his work in relation to contemporary debates on culture, aesthetics and modernity.

When Sociological Impressionism was first published in 1981, it was the first comprehensive study on Simmel’s social theory to appear in English since 1925. A pioneering work, it did much to bring about the rediscovery of Georg Simmel as one of the key sociologists of the twentieth century. David Frisby provides a provocative introduction to aspects of Simmel’s social theory, seriously challenging many interpretations of his work, most notably the view that Simmel produced a formal sociology. By drawing on many little-known essays and pieces by Simmel and his contemporaries, the book locates him within the social and intellectual milieu in which he was working. This is a reissue of the second edition, published in 1992, which includes a new afterword confronting critical responses to the first edition. This is an important work, which will be of interest to students of sociology and social philosophy in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Originally published in 1992, this book, written by one of the world's leading experts on Simmel, provides a fascinating set of insights into a thinker who is fast becoming recognized as the sociologist of modernity; an indispensible resource in confronting post-modernity. It examines the relevance of his work in relation to contemporary debates on culture, aesthetics and modernity.

When "Sociological Impressionism" was first published in 1981, it was the first comprehensive study on Simmel s social theory to appear in English since 1925. A pioneering work, it did much to bring about the rediscovery of Georg Simmel as one of the key sociologists of the twentieth century. David Frisby provides a provocative introduction to aspects of Simmel s social theory, seriously challenging many interpretations of his work, most notably the view that Simmel produced a "formal "sociology. By drawing on many little-known essays and pieces by Simmel and his contemporaries, the book locates him within the social and intellectual milieu in which he was working. This is a reissue of the second edition, published in 1992, which includes a new afterword confronting critical responses to the first edition. This is an important work, which will be of interest to students of sociology and social philosophy in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Fragments of Modernity, first published in 1985, provides a critical introduction to the work of three of the most original German thinkers of the early twentieth century. In their different ways, all three illuminated the experience of the modern urban life, whether in mid nineteenth-century Paris, Berlin at the turn of the twentieth century or later as the vanguard city of the Weimar Republic. They related the new modes of experiencing the world to the maturation of the money economy (Simmel), the process of rationalization of capital (Kracauer) and the fantasy world of commodity fetishism (Benjamin). In each case they focus on those fragments of social experience that could best capture the sense of modernity.

When Sociological Impressionism was first published in 1981, it was the first comprehensive study on Simmel’s social theory to appear in English since 1925. A pioneering work, it did much to bring about the rediscovery of Georg Simmel as one of the key sociologists of the twentieth century. David Frisby provides a provocative introduction to aspects of Simmel’s social theory, seriously challenging many interpretations of his work, most notably the view that Simmel produced a formal sociology. By drawing on many little-known essays and pieces by Simmel and his contemporaries, the book locates him within the social and intellectual milieu in which he was working. This is a reissue of the second edition, published in 1992, which includes a new afterword confronting critical responses to the first edition. This is an important work, which will be of interest to students of sociology and social philosophy in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.