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.
- ISBN10 0415370760
- ISBN13 9780415370769
- Publish Date 8 March 2007 (first published 1 January 2007)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Routledge
- Format Paperback
- Pages 302
- Language English