Space, the City and Social Theory

摘要

As the author states in her introduction, Space, the City and Social Theory is not intended to be read as an overview of either urban sociology or urban studies, but is instead concerned with providing an account of how social theory has encountered and illuminated the city. It takes its cue from two main bodies of literature. The first is the Chicago School of urban sociology, especially the work of Robert Park and Louis Wirth, while the second is European social theory and, in particular, the contributions of Simmel, Benjamin, Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau and Roland Barthes. As can be seen from this list of authors, the book has a tendency to focus upon small-scale social interactions and how the city is subjectively experienced, for example via the urban archetype of the flaneur as discussed at length in chapter 6.