Understanding Weber provides an accessible and comprehensive explanation of the central issues of Weber's work. Using the most recent scholarship and editions of Weber's writings, Sam Whimster establishes the full range, depth and development of Max Weber's approach to the social and cultural sciences. This ground-breaking book: locates the central issues in Weber's writings and relates them to the golden era of social and cultural sciences argues that Weber remains the major exponent of the classical tradition still relevant today offers a new interpretation of the dynamic of Weber’s career as historian, social-economist, methodologist and sociologist. Weber's sociology still stands as a successful and valid underwriting of the substantive fields of power, law, rulership, culture, religion, civilizational configurations, and economic sociology. At a time of the turning away from grand theory to empirical policy studies, this book asserts the authority of Weber's conception and calls for a critical engagement with his legacy in order to understand the dynamics of a globalizing modernity. This is an indispensable guide to Weber's writings and will be an invaluable companion to The Essential Weber (2004). The book closely tracks the development of Weber’s thinking, an exploration that will make it an obligatory choice for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers in the fields of sociological theory, economic sociology and cultural studies.

Praise for the First Edition: `Totally reliable... the authors have produced a book urgently needed by all those charged with introducing students to the classics... quite indispensable′ - Times Higher Education Supplement This is a fully updated and expanded new edition of the successful undergraduate text. Providing a lucid examination of the pivotal theories of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, the authors submit that these figures have decisively shaped the discipline. They show how the classical apparatus is in use, even though it is being directed in new ways in response to the changing character of society. Written with the needs of undergraduates in mind, the text is essential reading for students in sociology and social theory.

Lawrence Scaff provides new details about Weber's visit to the United States---what he did, what he saw, whom he met and why and how these experiences profoundly influenced Weber's thought an immigration, capitalism, science and culture, Romanticism, race diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. Scaff traces Weber's impact on the development of the social sciences in the United States following his death in 1920, examining how We ber's ideas were interpreted, translated, and disseminated by American scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Frank Knight, and how the Weberian canon, codified in America, was reintroduced into Europe after World War II. --

First Published in 1988, this volume works towards a new understanding and exploration of the rise and development of modern society, taking its lead from two classical theorists, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The key concept of this approach is the 'interpenetration' of different spheres of action. Richard Münch begins with an exploration of the points of convergence and divergence in the works of Durkheim and Weber. He then builds, from Durkheim, a new theory of social order as a complex set of ordering, dynamizing, identity-producing and goal-setting factors. Münch also constructs a new theory of personality development, based on Durkheim's view of the duality of human nature. He concludes by assessing weber's contribution to our understanding of how modern social order emerged, showing that the unique features of modern society emerged from the 'interpenetration' of cultural, political, communal and economic spheres in action.

`This is an excellent introduction to classical social theory. For most students it is the only book on the subject that they will need. The expositions are clear and comprehensive, outlining with almost alarming clarity ideas with which many of us have to struggle′ - Alan Bryman, The Management Centre, University of Leicester This is a thoroughly revised, expanded version of the best selling student text in classical social theory. The book provides an authoritative, accessible undergraduate guide to the three pivotal figures in the classical tradition. Readable and stimulating, the book explains the key ideas of these thinkers and situates them in their historical and philosophical contexts. The student gains an immediate understanding of what is distinctive and relevant about these giants of sociology. The book includes a glossary with over 150 entries. For a decade, the book has been required reading on undergraduate degree programmes. This new edition, refines the material, extends the analysis and enhances our appreciation. It is a nugget in its field.

Max Weber is one of the world’s most important social scientists, and one of the most notoriously difficult to understand. This dictionary will aid the reader in understanding Weber’s work. Every entry contains a basic definition, examples of and references to the word in Weber’s writing, and references to important secondary literature. More than an elementary dictionary, however, this work makes a contribution to the general culture and legacy of Weber’s work. The dictionary also contains extended entries for broader concepts and topics throughout Weber’s work, including law, politics, and religion. Every entry in the dictionary delves into Weber scholarship and acts as a point of departure in discussion and research. As such, this book will be an invaluable resource to general readers, students, and scholars alike.

Max Weber's writings in The Sociology of Religion are today acknowledged as a classic of the social sciences in the twentieth century. They are key texts for understanding Weber’s central sociological concepts concerning Western and Eastern ‘civilisations’. This book argues that the concept and problematic of personality plays a pivotal role within these works. Providing a detailed reconstruction of this concept within Weber’s systematic studies of world religions as well as throughout his methodological and political writings, this book shows its complex development within three strictly related problematics associated with Weber’s influential comparative historical sociology and theory of social action – individuation, politics and orientalism. Together they shape and constitute what is distinctive in Max Weber’s theory of personality.

Understanding Race, Class, Gender, & Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework, Second Edition, is the only text that develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of intersectionality. Weber argues that these social systems are historically and geographically contextual power relationships that are simultaneously expressed and experienced at both the macro level of social institutions and the micro level of individual lives and small groups. This is also the only text that teaches students how to apply the theory to their own analyses. Originally published in its first edition as two separate books, the second edition integrates the main text and the case studies into one volume. As in the previous edition, Weber uses education as an extended example to show students how to conduct a race, class, gender, and sexuality analysis. With completely updated data, this edition adds important new research in sexuality, globalization, and education. It also features new case studies, including one on Hurricane Katrina and another on the 2008 Presidential election. Understanding Race, Class, Gender, & Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework, Second Edition, can be used in a variety of courses: in social inequality, communication, women's and gender studies, ethnic studies, American studies, sociology, political science, human services, and public health.

Max Weber and Islam is a major effort by Islamic-studies specialists to reexamine and appraise Max Weber's perspectives on Islam and its historical development. Eight specialists on Islam and two sociologists explore many dimensions of Weber's comments on Islam, along with Weber's conceptual framework. The volume's introduction links the discussions to contemporary issues and debates. Wolfgang Schluchter reconstructs Weber's conceptual apparatus as it applies to Islam and its historical development. In subsequent chapters, Islamic specialists consider such major topics as the developmental history of Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic reform, Islamic law and capitalism, secularization in Islam, as well as the value of attempting to apply Weber's concept of sects to Islam. While some authors find flaws in Weber's factual knowledge of Islam, they also find considerable merit in the kinds of questions Weber raised. Contributors to the volume include highly respected contemporary international scholars of Islam: Ira Lapidus, Nehemia Levtzion, Richard M. Eaton, Peter Hardy, Rudolph Peters, Barbara Metcalf, Francis Robinson, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, and S.N. Eisenstadt. Toby Huff's introduction not only knits the thematics of the separate essays together but adds its own stresses while engaging the contributors in dialogue and debate about fundamental issues. This acute collective analysis establishes a new benchmark for understanding Weber and Islam. This book also provides an up-to-date overview of the developmental history of many aspects of Islam. A major reappraisal of the entire span of Max Weber's sociological thought on Islam, this book will appeal to a wide range of scholars and laymen interested in the Islamic world. It will be of particular interest to sociologists specializing in religion and Middle East area specialists.