A classic in its field, Community and Society was not the first book to explore the composition of, and relationship between, these two types of social groups. Confucius spoke of fundamental social relationships between friends, family members, and rulers and subjects. Similarly, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and other great thinkers produced clear-cut classical outlines of the two groups.
More recently, Ferdinand Tonnies examines the clash between small-scale neighborhood-based communities and the large-scale competitive market society. In doing so, he considered all aspects of...