ABSTRACT
The flaneur in social theory must commence with the contribution of Walter Benjamin towards a history and analytic of this ambiguous urban figure, whose existence and significance was already announced a century earlier by Baudelaire and others. In so doing, we are compelled to recognize that, in his variously termed 'prehistory of modernity', his excavation of 'Paris - capital of the nineteenth century', his 'Arcades Project', and in his many other writings, nor merely a subtle philosopher of history, nor indeed merely a stimulating and often unorthodox Marxist - and all of these groupings have claimed their Benjamin as their own -but also a sociologist, and, in the context of his still unrivalled investigation of the origins of modernity, an astute practitioner of historical sociology. An exploration of the flaneur in social theory should therefore turn to an examination of the contributions of those who were not recognized as sociologist.
