Prophecy from the margins

This chapter links urbanization to European thought’s growing emphasis on marginality. In short, it shows how cities produces zones in which ever more radical ideas could be expressed, both sustaining and intensifying older traditions of critique that dated back beyond the Enlightenment. The chapter concentrates on the work of Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).