The Cities of Georg Simmel
Contemporary Readings

Georg Simmel was the first sociologist of modernity and the metropolis. An essayist, philosopher, and sociologist, he traversed and breathed the air of his time like no other. He was a traveler and walker of European cities, their churches and museums, their hills and vineyards, their citadels and fortresses, their ruins, their canals and barges. The delight of modernity lay precisely in the simultaneity and diversity of possibilities it offered to the ever-surprised urban dweller. Simmel makes the great city the site of a foundational social experience.