Georg Simmel and the American prospect

the long version

This first book-length examination of the American reception of Georg Simmel, German philosopher and sociologist, offers a compelling new account of the transatlantic journey of Simmel's ideas. Jaworski draws on archival data, correspondence, interviews, and detailed textual analysis to explore the practical and strategic uses of Simmel's writings by a range of American social thinkers. These thinkers include the Chicago School figures Albion Small, Robert E. Park, and Everett C. Hughes; functionalist sociologists Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Lewis A. Coser, and Kaspar D. Naegele; and, more recently, Erving Goffman and postmodernists Deena and Michael Weinstein. . Jaworski shows that the way in which Americans received Simmel was intricately related to efforts to transform American society. A recently discovered essay on Simmel by the emigre sociologist Albert Salomon, "Georg Simmel Reconsidered," and included here with an introduction and notes by Jaworski, provides added dimension to this important study.