Max Weber : an intellectual biography /

Ringer (Univ. of Pittsburgh) offers an overview of Max Weber's intellectual career from the perspective of a historian, situating him in what Pierre Bourdieu calls the intellectual field of his day. The author's description of that context is largely derivative of his earlier, pathbreaking work The Decline of the German Mandarins (CH, Jun'70), including the institution of the university, the ideal of cultivation, and the German historical tradition. The explication of selected texts demonstrates how Weber's commitment to liberal pluralism was at odds with the academic establishment, which he viewed as inadequate to address the threat to individual responsibility and cultural diversity by the impersonal rationalization of forces such as bureaucratization, organized capitalism, and intellectual specialization. The latter formed a "steel housing" that Weber sought to resist without resorting to mystical escapism. Among the topics interpreted from this perspective are Weber's political liberalism and methodological pluralism; the Puritan's sense of calling contrasted to the world-rejection of Asian religions; Weber's incorporation of these concerns in a more systematic sociological approach; and his addresses on science and politics as vocations. Weber's liberal pluralism, Ringer asserts, continues to make him a model for our own time. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General collections and upper-division undergraduates and above. C. T. Loader University of Nevada, Las Vegas