Christian Schmid is a geographer, sociologist and urban researcher, co-authored a pioneering analysis of urbanization (with star-architects Herzog and de Meuron), launched the famous debate on planetary urbanization (with Neil Brenner, Harvard GSD), leads currently a project on the comparison of urbanization processes in 8 metropolises (Future Cities Laboratory Singapore).
Christian Schmid's reception and interpretation of Lefebvre's oeuvre refers strictly to the French originals and represents the first comprehensive epistemological reconstruction of the theory of the production of space. On that basis many of the previous confusions in the development of a critical spatial theory are clarified. This is where I see the highest significance of this path-breaking publication. -Prof. Dr. Benno Werlen, Friedrich Schiller University Schmid's publication is a superb theoretical treatise on Lefebvre, clarifying many common misunderstandings. It is particularly timely for those urban China researchers who are keen to avoid past mistakes of randomly indigenising and appropriating Western concepts and develop locally relevant theories in fruitful conversation with critical urban research. -Prof. Dr. Wing-Shing Tang, Hong Kong Baptist University Christian Schmid provides us with a wonderfully lucid guide through the complexity and richness of Henri Lefebvre's oeuvre. Among the many contributions of the book is the powerful new light it sheds on Lefebvre's spatio-historical and dialectical theory of society. Without question, it opens up vital new possibilities for a renewal of social theory, empirical research and political practice. -Gillian Hart