ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the work of Georg Simmel and the Chicago School, whose different strands were highly influenced by Simmel's sociology. Marx theorised modernity in terms of capitalism, Durkheim theorised it in terms of differentiation and Weber theorised it in terms of rationalisation. Simmel saw modernity as particularly related to urbanisation and the money economy that followed the growth of the metropolis. He – and later the Chicago School sociologists – perceived the city as the place to study modernity in its most wide-ranging and comprehensive form, and he perceived society in terms of social relations and human interaction rather than individuals or institutions. The chapter identifies central tenets in Simmel's classic work on social interaction vis-a-vis his analysis of the relations between individuals and the greater society. Simmel's theories are compared to the Chicago School's influential theories on marginalisation and the (dis)organisation of society.
