author
Franz Oppenheimer
1864–1943
A German sociologist and political economist, he moved from medicine into big questions about society, the state, and economic life. His work later drew attention for its influence on social thought, liberal and libertarian debates, and cooperative ideas tied to early Zionist settlement.
1 Audiobook
The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically
by Franz Oppenheimer
About the author
Born in Berlin in 1864, Franz Oppenheimer first studied medicine in Freiburg and Berlin and practiced as a physician before turning toward economics and sociology. He became known for writing about how societies are organized, how states emerge, and how power and economics shape everyday life.
Oppenheimer went on to hold the first chair of sociology in Germany at the University of Frankfurt, an important sign of how seriously the field was beginning to be taken. Among his best-known books is The State, and across his career he wrote extensively on social theory, political economy, and agrarian reform.
He was also involved in Zionist thought and supported cooperative agricultural settlement, linking his social ideas to practical experiments as well as theory. Forced out of Germany in the Nazi era, he later lived in Palestine and then the United States, where he died in 1943.