In this classic work, Walker examines the German Kleinstadt, settlements larger than villages but small enough that a separate patrician class has yet to emerge. His research is formed from an examination of hundreds of documents produced by these settlements in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, which he compares with his own research in Weissenburg, Bavaria.

He notes how the small towns developed an inward-looking nature over the course of the two hundred years under examination, their world separate from that of the peasants, nobles and states outside the gates. Outsiders such as Jews were treated with mistrust and even hostility. This seed of small-town hostility was, according to Walker, to play a big part in the Holocaust, although since the migrations of the postwar a repeat should prove impossible. Overall, I found the study a fascinating insight into the character of the German petit bourgoise, and as a work of urban history an insightful look into the way space shapes character.