Max Weber and 'The Protestant Ethic' Twin Histories

Max Weber and The Protestant Ethic: Twin Histories presents an entirely new portrait of Max Weber, one of the most prestigious social theorists in recent history, using his most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, as its central point of reference. It offers an intellectual biography of Weber framed along historical lines - something which has never been done before. It re-evaluates The Protestant Ethic--a text surprisingly neglected by scholars - supplying a missing intellectual and chronological centre to Weber's life and work.

Peter Ghosh suggests that The Protestant Ethic is the link which unites the earlier (pre-1900) and later (post-1910) phases of his career. He offers a series of fresh perspectives on Weber's thought in various areas - charisma, capitalism, law, politics, rationality, bourgeois life, and (not least) Weber's unusual religious thinking, which was 'remote from god' yet based on close dialogue with Christian theology. This approach produces a convincing view of Max Weber as a whole; while previously the sheer breadth of his intellectual interests has caused him to be read in a fragmentary way according to a series of specialized viewpoints, this volume seeks to put him back together again as a real individual.

Peter Ghosh was a Junior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford (1980-1), and has been a Fellow in History at St. Anne's College, Oxford since 1981.

Part I. The Genesis of the Protestant Ethic - and the History of Max Weber c.1884-1905
1. A Problem
2. A Situation Report c.1897
3. A Narrative 1898-1905
4. Capitalism
5. Politics and Nationality
6. Religion
7. Rationality and Law
8. A Whole Text?
Part II. The Second History of the Protestant Ethic - Max Weber, 1905-1920
1. 1905-8: Going into Hibernation
2. The "Anti-critical" Essays
3. Recalled to Life: from the Protestant Ethic to 'Economy and Society' and The World Religions
4. War and Peace: 1915-20
5. Religiosity and Modernity (I)
6. Religiosity and Modernity (II)
7. Capitalism and Herrschaft
8. From the Sects to 'the City': Max Weber the 'fairly pure bourgeois'
Envoi: Who was Max Weber?