Herbert Gintis, professor at UMass Amherst, spends a lot of time writing incredibly well-formed (and often funny) reviews on Amazon.

I could not figure out what Simmel was trying to say. If someone told me Simmel was parodying the Germanic idealist literary tradition of the time, I would be prepared to believe it. Here is one sentence chosen at random (p. 63): “The inorganic body is distinguished from the living one above all by this: the form that defines it is determined from outside… The organic body, however, produces its form from within.”

Well, I do declare! That is really deep and insightful. If you are about eight years old.