Ferdinand Tönnies

Born in 1855, Tönnies trained as a philosopher and economist before turning to the question that would define him: what distinguishes the bonds of village life from the contracts of the modern city. His answer, published in his distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, became foundational. He co-founded the German Sociological Association in 1909 with Max Weber and Georg Simmel, serving as president until 1933, when the Nazis forced him out for his public criticism. Over his lifetime he published more than 900 works, ranging across theory and field studies, and was regarded as the first proper German sociologist. He died in 1936, and though Weber and Simmel have since drawn more scholarly attention, Tönnies remains one of the three founding fathers of classical German sociology.