Max Weber in America
1st Edition
Published on 10. January 2011
328 pages
978-1-4008-3671-0 (ISBN)
Description
Max Weber, widely considered a founder of sociology and the modern social sciences, visited the United States in 1904 with his wife Marianne. The trip was a turning point in Weber's life and it played a pivotal role in shaping his ideas, yet until now virtually our only source of information about the trip was Marianne Weber's faithful but not always reliable 1926 biography of her husband.Max Weber in America carefully reconstructs this important episode in Weber's career, and shows how the subsequent critical reception of Weber's work was as American a story as the trip itself.
Lawrence Scaff provides new details about Weber's visit to the United States--what he did, what he saw, whom he met and why, and how these experiences profoundly influenced Weber's thought on immigration, capitalism, science and culture, Romanticism, race, diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. Scaff traces Weber's impact on the development of the social sciences in the United States following his death in 1920, examining how Weber's ideas were interpreted, translated, and disseminated by American scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Frank Knight, and how the Weberian canon, codified in America, was reintroduced into Europe after World War II.
A landmark work by a leading Weber scholar, Max Weber in America will fundamentally transform our understanding of this influential thinker and his place in the history of sociology and the social sciences.
Lawrence Scaff provides new details about Weber's visit to the United States--what he did, what he saw, whom he met and why, and how these experiences profoundly influenced Weber's thought on immigration, capitalism, science and culture, Romanticism, race, diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. Scaff traces Weber's impact on the development of the social sciences in the United States following his death in 1920, examining how Weber's ideas were interpreted, translated, and disseminated by American scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Frank Knight, and how the Weberian canon, codified in America, was reintroduced into Europe after World War II.
A landmark work by a leading Weber scholar, Max Weber in America will fundamentally transform our understanding of this influential thinker and his place in the history of sociology and the social sciences.
All prices
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Lawrence A. Scaff
Max Weber in America
Book
01/2011
Princeton University Press
€61.90
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Lawrence A. Scaff is professor of political science and sociology at Wayne State University. He is the author of Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber.
Content
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
PREFACE xi
INTRODUCTION 1
PART 1: THE AMERICAN JOURNEY
CHAPTER ONE: Thoughts about America 11
Traveling to Progressive America 11
New Horizons of Thought 16
A "Spiritualistic" Construction of the Modern Economy? 20
CHAPTER TWO: The Land of Immigrants 25
Arriving in New York 25
Church and Sect, Status and Class 29
Settlements and Urban Space 36
CHAPTER THREE: Capitalism 39
The City as Phantasmagoria 40
Hull House, the Stockyards, and the Working Class 43
Character as Social Capital 48
CHAPTER FOUR: Science and World Culture 54
The St. Louis Congress: Unity of the Sciences? 54
The Last Time for a Free and Great Development: American Exceptionalism? 60
The Politics of Art 66
Gender, Education, and Authority 69
CHAPTER FIVE: Remnants of Romanticism 73
The Lure of the Frontier 74
The Problems of Indian Territory 82
Nature, Traditionalism, and the New World 90
The Signifi cance of the Frontier 95
CHAPTER SIX: The Color Line 98
Du Bois and the Study of Race 100
The Lessons of Tuskegee 108
Race and Ethnicity, Class and Caste 112
CHAPTER SEVEN: Different Ways of Life 117
Colonial Children 117
Nothing Remains except Eternal Change 119
Ecological Interlude 127
Inner Life and Public World 129
The Cool Objectivity of Sociation 133
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Protestant Ethic 137
Spirit and World 139
William James and His Circle 146
Ideas and Experience 151
CHAPTER NINE: American Modernity 161
Strange Contradictions 164
Becoming American 168
Cultural Pluralism 174
TEN Interpretation of the Experience 181
The Discourse about America 182
A Way Out of the Iron Cage? 185
America in Weber's Work 191
PART 2: THE WORK IN AMERICA
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Discovery of the Author 197
Author and Audience 197
Networks of Scholars 198
Translation History 201
The Disciplines 206
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Creation of the Sacred Text 211
An American in Heidelberg 213
Parsons Translates The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 217
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Invention of the Theory 229
Gerth and Mills Publish a Weber "Source Book" 229
Parsons's "Theory of Social and Economic Organization" 233
Weber among the Émigrés 238
Weberian Sociology and Social Theory 244
Weber beyond Weberian Sociology 249
APPENDIX 1: Max and Marianne Weber's Itinerary for the American Journey in 1904 253
APPENDIX 2: Max Weber, Selected Correspondence with American Colleagues, 1904-5 257
ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS CONSULTED 267
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES 269
INDEX 305
PREFACE xi
INTRODUCTION 1
PART 1: THE AMERICAN JOURNEY
CHAPTER ONE: Thoughts about America 11
Traveling to Progressive America 11
New Horizons of Thought 16
A "Spiritualistic" Construction of the Modern Economy? 20
CHAPTER TWO: The Land of Immigrants 25
Arriving in New York 25
Church and Sect, Status and Class 29
Settlements and Urban Space 36
CHAPTER THREE: Capitalism 39
The City as Phantasmagoria 40
Hull House, the Stockyards, and the Working Class 43
Character as Social Capital 48
CHAPTER FOUR: Science and World Culture 54
The St. Louis Congress: Unity of the Sciences? 54
The Last Time for a Free and Great Development: American Exceptionalism? 60
The Politics of Art 66
Gender, Education, and Authority 69
CHAPTER FIVE: Remnants of Romanticism 73
The Lure of the Frontier 74
The Problems of Indian Territory 82
Nature, Traditionalism, and the New World 90
The Signifi cance of the Frontier 95
CHAPTER SIX: The Color Line 98
Du Bois and the Study of Race 100
The Lessons of Tuskegee 108
Race and Ethnicity, Class and Caste 112
CHAPTER SEVEN: Different Ways of Life 117
Colonial Children 117
Nothing Remains except Eternal Change 119
Ecological Interlude 127
Inner Life and Public World 129
The Cool Objectivity of Sociation 133
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Protestant Ethic 137
Spirit and World 139
William James and His Circle 146
Ideas and Experience 151
CHAPTER NINE: American Modernity 161
Strange Contradictions 164
Becoming American 168
Cultural Pluralism 174
TEN Interpretation of the Experience 181
The Discourse about America 182
A Way Out of the Iron Cage? 185
America in Weber's Work 191
PART 2: THE WORK IN AMERICA
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Discovery of the Author 197
Author and Audience 197
Networks of Scholars 198
Translation History 201
The Disciplines 206
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Creation of the Sacred Text 211
An American in Heidelberg 213
Parsons Translates The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 217
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Invention of the Theory 229
Gerth and Mills Publish a Weber "Source Book" 229
Parsons's "Theory of Social and Economic Organization" 233
Weber among the Émigrés 238
Weberian Sociology and Social Theory 244
Weber beyond Weberian Sociology 249
APPENDIX 1: Max and Marianne Weber's Itinerary for the American Journey in 1904 253
APPENDIX 2: Max Weber, Selected Correspondence with American Colleagues, 1904-5 257
ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS CONSULTED 267
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES 269
INDEX 305
