Revealing the extent to which scholars are seeking to understand both current and historical issues through the sociology of Max Weber, this book reaffirms and extends the enduring relevance of Weber's thought to contemporary cultural and political questions.Through a thematic structure designed to expose a variety of ways in which Weber's work matters with reference to a given subject, it comprises methodological reflection on Weber's historical sociology, as well as the application and testing of his ideal types in historical enquiry, often to areas that have not yet been approached in this way.With its focus on both the practical application of Weber's thought as well as his philosophical legacy, "Max Weber Matters" will be of interest to scholars across a range of disciplines, including historians, sociologists, political scientists and social theorists.

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List of Contributors

Series Editors 'Preface

Introduction: Interweaving Past and Present

David J. Chalcraft

PART 1: INTERWEAVING PAST AND PRESENT: SETTING THE SCENE

1 Why Hermeneutics, the Text(s) and the Biography of the Work Matter in Max Weber Studies

 David J. Chalcrafi

2 Reminiscences of the Weber Centenary 1964, its Prehistory and Aftermath: Lessons in Academic Politics

 Guenther Roth

PART 2: PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUES

3 Philosophy Beyond the Bounds of Reason: The Influence of Max Weber on the Development of Karl Jaspers's

 Existenzphilosophie, 1909 1932

 Joshua Derman

4 Merleau-Ponty's Use of the Weberian Example:Avoiding Totalizing Meanings in History

 Ritchie Savage

5 Adorno's Paradox Weber's Constructionism: Scrutinizing Theory and Method

 Fanon John Howell

6 The Elusiveness of Meaning: From Max Weber to Jtirgen Habermas

 Maria Victoria Crespo

PART 3: THEORIZING RATIONALITY AND PROCESSES OF RATIONALIZATION

7 Blind Spot? Weber's Concept of Expertise and the Perplexing Case of China

 Stephen P. Turner

8 Economic Rationalization, Money and Measures:A Weberian Perspective

 Hector Vera

9 Applied Science and Rationalized Hinduism--An Elective Affinity.'?

 Richard Cimino

10 Rationality and Nuclear Weapons: Weber's Pertinence in the PostAnnihilatory Age

 Brian C. Bartholomew

PART 4: THE CULTURE OF CAPITALISM: PAST AND PRESENT

11 The Acquisitive Machine: Max Weber, Thorstein Veblen, and the Culture of Consumptive Individualism

 Graham Cassano

12 VergeselIschafiung and Berufsmenschentum: Max Weber on Religion and Rationalism in the Middle Ages

 Lutz Kaelber

13 Beyond the Protestant Ethic: Culture, Subjectivity and Instrumental Labor

 Richard Lloyd

PART 5: STUDIES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF LEGITIMACY

14 The Leadership of the Dead: Notes towards a Weberian Analysis of Charisma in Narratives of Martyrdom

 Marisol Lopez Menendez

15 The Da Vinci Code: Ecclesial Governance and Max Weber's Ideal Types of Authority

 James H. Mahon

16 Weber's Rational-Legal Model of Legitimation and the Police in London and New York City, 1830-1870

 Wilbur R. Miller

PART 6: CONSCIOUSNESS, HISTORY, RELATIVISM AND THE INTERWEAVING OF PAST AND PRESENT

17 The Perpetual and Tight Interweaving of Past and Present in Max Weber's Sociology

 Stephen Kalberg

18 Temporality and the Value of Facts in Max Weber's Critical Social Science

 Robert M. Slammon

19 Weber and the Straussian Charge of Relativism

 Ahmad Sadri and Mahmoud Sadri

Index