Overview

Max Weber's famous study of 1904-1905, ""The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"", has been, and continues to be, an influential text in the sociology of modern Western societies. However the text was not originally meant to stand alone in the form which we know it today. Weber intended to extend the study with further installments in the journal he helped found in 1903, the ""Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik"". Although he never produced these essays, he did, instead, complete four lengthy ""Replies"" or ""Antikritiken"" to reviews of the text by two German historians of the day, H. Karl Fischer and Felix Rachfahl. Writt en between 1907 and 1910, the ""Replies"" offer an insight into Weber's intentions in the original study, with this volume offering all four Replies in English. Ranging across issues such as the differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism, the spirit of the Renaissance and the definition of capitalism, the ""Replies"" clarify the aspects of the hypothesis about an ""elective affinity"" between Protestant asceticism and rational economic ""conduct of life"".

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9780853239765

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Reviews

'We have waited far too long for an English edition of Weber's replies to his critics... Had these replies been published with the original 1930 translation of the PESC the whole Protestant Ethic debate would never have gone down so many blind alleys... Readers will also find one of the most succinct statements of Weber's objectives in writing the PESC as well as a clarification of his research methods.' Dr Sam Whimster, Reader in Sociology at London Guildhall University

Author Information

Dr Austin Harrington is Reader in Sociology at the University of Leeds.

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