Introduction

Abstract

Why write, or for that matter read, another book about Max Weber? Given that there are hundreds of texts that address every conceivable aspect of this great thinker’s life and work, what more is there left to say? My answer may at first seem surprising, that this is not a book about Max Weber. To clarify: this is not a book that centres on Weber’s life or his underlying personality. And it is not a book about Weber’s work per se. It does not seek either to establish the truth of Weber’s published writings, or to reconstruct unpublished or planned work in ways that he would have intended. There are many existing books that do precisely this, and do it very well. Rather, the aim of the present book is to do something different: to revisit and rework key concepts and ideas from the writings of Weber in order to think sociologically about the social and cultural dynamics of contemporary capitalism. This book is not a celebration of Weber’s life or work but rather an attempt to use his writings to consider possible ways of analysing and understanding the present. This is not to say that Weber’s ideas and concepts are timeless and untouchable. They are, of course, framed by specific historical and political contexts, and for this reason, among others, Weber’s work has its uses and limitations. Limits, however, as Michel Foucault has so powerfully demonstrated, can be both constraining and empowering.