Louis Wirth, la sociologia tedesca e l'ossessione della densità

The article reconstructs Louis Wirth's ties with Germany and German sociology, focusing in particular on the category of density, whose theoretical foundations Wirth believed he could trace back to the works of Max Weber and Georg Simmel. This was a genuine misunderstanding, due in large part to the new problems that the Chicago School faced in relation to what had been the history of the European city. However, this misunderstanding gave rise to original lines of research. [Publisher's text]