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An insightful socio-cultural analysis of the differences in Chinese and Western relationships to the public and the private spheres.

As a founder of humanist sociology Simmel sent several important messages, identified and explained here as referring to interpretation, evolution, interaction, and alienation. Simmel's ideas on these issues are confronted and compared with those of Karl Marx and Max Weber.

The approach of Symbolic Interaction (SI) which Herbert Blumer called «Symbolic Interactionism», is regarded as a modern version of the sociology of Verstehen, originally outlined by Georg Simmel and Max Weber. This book is divided into four chapters. In the first the relevant philosophical sources are indicated, particularly those relating to Georg Simmel. The second chapter examines the basic principles of Verstehen and the construction of ideal types. In the third chapter an account is given of the intellectual background of SI, with an introduction to the main proponents involved in its inception: Charles Horton Cooley, William Isaac Thomas, and George Herbert Mead. The fourth chapter discusses the writings of Herbert Blumer, Anselm Strauss, Tamotsu Shibutani and Erving Goffman. Transcriptions of tape recordings of important statements by Shibutani and by Goffman are included to assure authenticity on critical issues.

Georg Simmel is and will continue to be one of the most important authors for all the humanities. This is true because hardly anyone else has forseen the enormous changes in culture, politics, and in the social conditions in general, that would occur in the course of the 20th century like he did. It is also true because he discovered a new way of thinking, one which made this premonition of dramatic change possible. Georg Simmel ist und bleibt ein wichtiger Autor für den ganzen Bereich der Geisteswissenschaften. Nicht nur weil Simmel die gewaltigen kulturellen, politischen und allgemeinen sozialen Umwälzungen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts wie kaum ein anderer vorausgesehen hat, sondern auch, weil er die Art zu denken entwickelt hat, ohne die eine Voraussicht nicht möglich war.