Max Weber is a fresh look at the life and work of one of the greatest social and political thinkers of the modern era, and the first book to focus on Weber from an American perspective.Ever since World War II, Max Weber has been regarded as a monument to the most conservative and conventional orthodoxies of the social science establishment. Despite the fact that many of Weber’s books, foremost among them, Economy and Society and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, are classics and continue to be read, there has never been a single-volume treatment of Weber’s life and thought in English.In reversing this critical neglect, John Patrick Diggins challenges Weber’s iconic status and in the process uncovers another side of Weber: one influenced by Nietzche, one whose deep belief in individualism bound him close to the Emersonian tradition in America, one with a Lincoln-like sense of history as tragedy, and one with a sober sense of the responsibilities of the state.Diggins brilliantly connects the critical moments of Weber’s life—and in particular, his experience of America—to his most enduring ideas on power, capitalism, bureaucracy, and science. He argues that Weber’s emphasis on such topics as rapaciousness, hypocrisy, and deception makes his work timelier than ever in helping to illuminate the dilemmas of modern American politics.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
John Patrick Diggins has been a professional historian of the retreat of the American left for many years, most recently in The Promise of Pragmatism. Now he turns his attention to the rather pessimistic European figure of Max Weber (1864-1920). Weber regarded capitalism as, at best, an "iron cage" of comfortable boredom that destroyed the spirit. The inspiration for his famous The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism came from his 1904 visit to the U.S., where he was impressed and appalled by the deep connection between the Puritan work ethic and business success. Diggins clearly shares much of Weber's viewpoint, and expertly conveys his ideas on religion and ideology, authority and freedom, politics and ethics, and other diverse topics including Judaism and eroticism.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
The attentive reader will find most of the main incidents of Weber's life here, and some interesting commentary ... The purpose ... is to get readers to take Weber's distaste for the brashness, vulgarity and general foolishness of modern democratic societies ... seriously. In that he is rather successful. -- The New York Times Book Review, Alan Ryan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Introduction to Weberian Thought!,
By seydlitz89 "seydlitz89" (Portugal) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Max Weber: Politics And The Spirit Of Tragedy (Hardcover)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Max Weber was a modern thinker who defied categorization. Was he a philosopher, an historian, a political theorist or a sociologist? This leads to some confusion as to his message. For instance, contrary to what one of the reviews mentions, Weber didn't view Capitalism as an "iron cage", but it's modern derivative, bureaucracy as that cage. Few people will argue with that comment. Strangely enough too, as Professor Diggins indicates, the questions that Weber struggled with one hundred years ago are still very much with us today. Could that be because the situation of pre-World War I Germany burdened as it was with a dysfunctional political system and weak leaders, yet possessing a strong, vigorous economy and formidable military, is very similar to the that of America today? I found the author's discussion of Weber's problems of reconciling the "ethic of principled convictions" with the "ethic of responsibility" particularly timely. After finishing the book I found myself wanting to know more about Max Weber's insights into the modern condition.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Correction,
By A Customer
This review is from: Max Weber: Politics And The Spirit Of Tragedy (Paperback)
I certainly agree with the earlier reviewer from Portugal as to the high quality of Diggins' book. However, the reviewer is wrong about the term "iron cage." Weber very clearly refers to capitalism as an "iron cage" in the powerful concluding pages of his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism." Weber both admired and feared the economic system that he saw as our fate. In a world in which values inevitably conflict and unintended consequences are the rule, every social system and every social initiative will be tinged with irony and tragedy. Capitalism is no exception; it is a mixed bag, both beneficial and costly. For Weber, only by both responsibly safeguarding ourselves from its more dehumanizing features and at the same time measuring up to its demands upon individual initiative can the human spirit survive and in some measure determine its future. We are suspended, with no relief other than our own individual and collective will to act, between these perennial and contradictory demands. Weber harbored both hopes and doubts that human beings were up to the task. Diggins' book brings out this message very well.
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Flaws in Diggins 'Max Weber",
By
This review is from: Max Weber: Politics And The Spirit Of Tragedy (Hardcover)
While the treatment of Weber's life and thoughts is quite useful and rather well written, the text contains over thirty (30)errors of German and Latin expressions. These are orthographical,wrong gender endings, word distortions beyond recognition, etc. Even historical names, like Leibknecht (for Karl Liebknecht) and Sombardt(for Werner Sombart) have been mangled. For a work with "academic" pretensions -- the author is a professor at CCNY -- this is regrettable. One wonders what the numerous editors, proofreaders, and so on have done other than base their "imprimatur" on self-attested expertise.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
