About the Book
“Reinhard Bendix’s work is the most complete introduction to Weber’s thinking available in English … Bendix devotes most of his book to an exposition of Weber’s substantive writings, omitting only a few studies…. Bendix is as fair and accurate in his exposition of Weber’s work as one can ever expect, and he leads us with a keen sense for the essentials through Weber’s voluminous scholarship.”
—Political Science Quarterly
“Where others have restricted themselves to brief interpretations or analyses of specific aspects of Weber’s work, Bendix has attempted the full scale study that has long been needed. As such, it unquestionably fulfills the minimum requirements. It is admirably clear, well organized, inclusive, and based on long and conscientious research. For the student who wants an introductory guide to Weber, it will be a godsend, providing as it does the overall structure that the theoretician himself did not live to complete…. Bendix’s book proves not to be an ‘intellectual portrait’ at all: its subtitle is a misnomer. It is rather an expert and extremely useful key to his work. A really exciting and original book on Weber.”
—American Historical Review
“Bendix has set out an admirably straightforward exposition of the whole body of Weber’s scholarly work.”
—American Anthropologist
Contents
• Career and Personal Orientation
PART ONE – GERMAN SOCIETY AND THE PROTESTANT ETHIC
• Weber’s Early Studies and the Definition of His Intellectual Perspective
• Aspects of Economic Rationality in the West
PART TWO – SOCIETY, RELIGION, AND SECULAR ETHIC:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CIVILIZATIONS
• Introduction
• Society and Religion in China
• Society and Religion in India
• Society and Religion in Ancient Palestine
• Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion
PART THREE – DOMINATION, ORGANIZATION, AND LEGITIMACY:
MAX WEBER’S POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY
• Basic Concepts of Political Sociology
• Charismatic Leadership and Domination
• Traditional Domination
• Legal Domination: The Emergence of Legal Rationality
• Legal Domination (continued): The Modern State and the Struggle for Power
• A Contemporary Perspective
• Max Weber’s Image of Society
About the Author / Editor
REINHARD BENDIX is professor of political science at the University of California in Berkeley, where he has been teaching since 1947. Born in Berlin in 1916, Bendix fled the Hitler regime when he was twenty-two, and came to the United States, where he entered the University of Chicago. There he studied sociology and obtained a B.A. in 1941, an M.A. in 1943, and his Ph.D. four years later. In 1970 he was president of the American Sociological Association. Among his numerous books are Work and Authority (1956; reissued by the University of California Press in 1974), for which he received the American Sociological Association’s McIver Award in 1958; Nation-Building and Citizenship (1964); Embattled Reason (1970), and Kings or People (1980, published by the University of California Press).
