ABSTRACT
Simmel was born in 1858. Raised in the centre of the Jewish business culture of Berlin, Simmel studied history and philosophy, becoming a Privatdozent in 1885. Although he published numerous books and articles, Simmel was excluded from influential university positions as a result of the pervasive anti-Semitism of the period, and it was not until 1914 that he was finally promoted to a full professorship at the University of Strasbourg. Like Durkheim, Simmel was both the object of anti-Semitic prejudice and a fervent supporter of the nationalist cause in the First World War. Simmel died in 1918 of cancer of the liver (Coser 1971).
