The historian Wolfgang Mommsen was one of the foremost experts on Max Weber as well as an insightful and accessible interpreter of his work. Mommsen's classic book, first published in 1974 under the title The Age of Bureaucracy, not only concisely explains the basic concepts underlying Weber's worldview, but also explores the historical, social, and intellectual contexts in which he operated, including Weber's development as an academic, his relationship to German nationalism, and his engagement with Marxism. Supplemented with a new foreword, a bibliography that includes recent studies, and a postscript by Volker Berghahn that surveys the most important debates on Weber's work since his death, this short volume serves as an excellent resource for scholars and students alike.

Globalization presents major challenges to scholars of history. Different variants of global history and world history compete with, and transform, more traditional approaches of national, regional, and local scope, accompanied by new forms of international and transcultural cooperation. However, as this book shows, these transnational trends in the historical discipline are not without precedent. Based on painstaking research, this volume reconstructs the history of the International Congresses of Historians from the first one in The Hague, 1898, to the nineteenth in Oslo, 2000. It also tells the story of the International Committee of the Historical Sciences, the world organization of historians, which was founded, with much American support, in 1926 and today includes 54 national committees and 28 affiliated international organizations from all parts of the world. Karl Dietrich Erdmann, former president of this organization, covered the story up to 1985. Wolfgang J. Mommsen continued it into the twenty-first century. This book traces and analyzes the changes of historians' problems, topics, and methods, as reflected at their International Congresses and in the work of their international organization. It describes the cleavages, debates, and forging of ties among historians from different parts of the world and ideological camps. It demonstrates how historians fought against academic nationalism-or succumbed to its seduction. It shows how the Cold War polarized the world of historians whereas the International Congresses offered a platform for bridging the gap. Since 1990, they have helped to redefine the relationship between historians from the West and from other parts of the world. The internationalization of the study of history is reaching a new quality. Karl Dietrich Erdmann's book was first published in German in 1987. It has been translated, updated, and edited for an international audience of the twenty-first century.

Max Weber (1894-1920) is generally recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern sociology. This collection pays homage to his continuing influence, not just within sociology, but also political theory, science and religion. The books carefully chosen for this collection provide an overview of all his most important ideas. They are critically assessed and analyzed to gain a real comprehension of his life's work.

Max Weber and His Contemporaries provides an unrivalled tour d'horizon of European intellectual life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and an assessment of the pivotal position within it occupied by Max Weber. Weber's many interests in and contributions to, such diverse fields as epistemology, political sociology, the sociology of religion and economic history are compared with and connected to those of his friends, pupils and antagonists and also of those contemporaries with whom he had neither a personal relationship nor any kind of scholoarly exchange. Several contributors also explore Weber's attitudes towards the most important political positions of his time (socialism, conservatism and anarchism) and his own involvement in German politics. This volume contributes not only to a better understanding of one of the most eminent modern thinkers and social scientists, but also provides an intellectual biography of a remarkable generation. This book was first published in 1987.

This book, first published in 1983, illustrates the domestic and internal dimension of appeasement and explores the political options open to the western powers in the run up to the Second World War. It looks at the factors pointing in the direction of a general settlement with the dictators: limitation of resources and strategic over-commitment by Britain; economic decline and financial exhaustion of France; lack of support from the United States and the Soviet Union.

The historian Wolfgang Mommsen was one of the foremost experts on Max Weber as well as an insightful and accessible interpreter of his work. Mommsen's classic book, first published in 1974 under the title The Age of Bureaucracy, not only concisely explains the basic concepts underlying Weber's worldview, but also explores the historical, social, and intellectual contexts in which he operated, including Weber's development as an academic, his relationship to German nationalism, and his engagement with Marxism. Supplemented with a new foreword, a bibliography that includes recent studies, and a postscript by Volker Berghahn that surveys the most important debates on Weber's work since his death, this short volume serves as an excellent resource for scholars and students alike.

This book, first published in 1983, illustrates the domestic and internal dimension of appeasement and explores the political options open to the western powers in the run up to the Second World War. It looks at the factors pointing in the direction of a general settlement with the dictators: limitation of resources and strategic over-commitment by Britain; economic decline and financial exhaustion of France; lack of support from the United States and the Soviet Union.

This stimulating collection of essays by distinguished British, American, Australian and German scholars, originally published in 1985, offers a picture of the upsurge of New Unionism and the growth of old unions, and looks at the severe setbacks which occurred in the labour movements of Britain and Germany between the 1880s and the First World War. Labour history is seen from a European perspective and special emphasis is placed on the role of the state in Britain and Germany in its desire to contain and suppress trade union activity by law or force. Insights are provided into the political allegiances of the unions and their members to the parties of the working class and the state.

Max Weber and His Contemporaries provides an unrivalled tour d'horizon of European intellectual life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and an assessment of the pivotal position within it occupied by Max Weber. Weber's many interests in and contributions to, such diverse fields as epistemology, political sociology, the sociology of religion and economic history are compared with and connected to those of his friends, pupils and antagonists and also of those contemporaries with whom he had neither a personal relationship nor any kind of scholoarly exchange. Several contributors also explore Weber's attitudes towards the most important political positions of his time (socialism, conservatism and anarchism) and his own involvement in German politics. This volume contributes not only to a better understanding of one of the most eminent modern thinkers and social scientists, but also provides an intellectual biography of a remarkable generation. This book was first published in 1987.

A major work of German historiography, this comprehensive account of Weber's political views and activities reveals that, paradoxically, Weber was at once an ardent liberal and a determined German nationalist and imperialist. Wolfgang J. Mommsen shows the important links between these seemingly conflicting positions and provides a critique of Weber's sociology of power and his concept of democratic rule. First published in German in 1959, Max Weber and German Politics appeared in a revised edition in 1974 and became available in an English translation only in 1984. In writing this work, Mommsen drew extensively on Weber's published and unpublished essays, newspaper articles, memoranda, and correspondence."

The power of the Prussian state, with its outward splendour and military pageantry, and with the prestige it began to enjoy within the system of European states, gradually came to outweigh older traditions of cultural identity. The imperial period saw the formation of all the principal institutional structures which have continued to govern life in Germany, and all the foundations of present-day cultural life. Yet the German Empire remained a state distorted by authoritarianism. All areas of life were affected, politics, the economy, the arts, education and foreign policy, and a widening gulf opened between the political system and society, putting at risk the very governability of the Empire. It was in these conditions that Germany went to war in 1914, a conflict which ended with the collapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy and revolution. This book offers a cogent analysis of the main developments and issues in a formative and portentous period of Germany's history.

English summary: The Max Weber-Studienausgabe (MWS) renders Max Weber's works and speeches accessible to a large audience, using the complete and reliable Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe (MWG) as its basis while deliberately dispensing with its editorial apparatus. It has however been laid out in such a manner that the reader can easily fall back on the MWG . In this volume, Max Weber presents the most important forms of past and present communities and their structural principles. These range from the household to the family, the firm and then to ethnic and political communities. The market society is given a special position. German description: Die Max Weber-Studienausgabe (MWS) will die Schriften und Reden Max Webers auf der gesicherten Textgrundlage der Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe (MWG) allgemein zuganglich machen, unter Verzicht auf den editorischen Apparat. Dabei ist sie so angelegt, dass dem Benutzer der Ruckgriff auf die MWG jederzeit moglich ist. Deshalb folgt die Studienausgabe in Textkonstitution und Anordnung der Texte durchgangig der MWG. Um dem Leser daruber hinaus das Aufsuchen von Fundstellen zu erleichtern, sind am Fuss jeder Seite die entsprechenden Seitenzahlen der MWG angegeben. Ausserdem wird auf die gangigen Ausgaben verwiesen, die bisher in der Sekundarliteratur gebrauchlich sind.Dieser Band prasentiert sieben nachgelassene Texte Max Webers zum Thema 'Gemeinschaften', die fur sein grosses unvollendet gebliebenes Werk 'Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft' bestimmt waren. An den ersten Text uber die Arten des Wirtschaftens schliessen sich Max Webers Ausfuhrungen uber die verschiedenen Gemeinschaftsformen an. Ausgehend von der Hausgemeinschaft als der 'urwuchsigsten' Form beschreibt Max Weber die Entwicklung uber Familie und Betrieb bis hin zu den ethnischen und politischen Gemeinschaften, gipfelnd in einer Kritik an der 'Idee der Nation'. Beigefugt sind ausserdem zwei unvollendete Texte uber die 'Marktgemeinschaft' und 'Klassen', 'Stande' und 'Parteien' sowie ein uberlieferter Gliederungsentwurf zum Thema 'Kriegerstande'. Fur die Gemeinschaftsformen verneint Max Weber eine Zwangslaufigkeit der Entwicklung und wendet sich damit gegen die zeitgenossisch sehr einflussreiche Theorie einer teleologischen 'Stufenfolge' der Menschheitsgeschichte. Diese wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Hintergrunde werden in der Einleitung herausgearbeitet und zugleich mit der Werkbiographie verknupft, so dass ein Bogen von Max Webers fruhen nationalokonomischen Vorlesungen bis hin zu seinem soziologischen Hauptwerk geschlagen wird.

In recent years the discussion of imperialism has become so compartmentalized that it is difficult for somebody who is not directly involved to put the often polemical discussion and the various scientific and political positions forward into a relevant context. Mommsen's survey is an excellent guide.--German Studies, on the German edition.
Theories of Imperialism is the most succinct, fairest, and most sophisticated statement I have seen of the range of theories of imperialism. Each set of theorists is come at in their own terms, described fairly, and summarized fully. The book is objective, readable, and short.--Robin W. Winks, Yale University

English summary: Weber's famous speeches which he delivered to students in Munich at the end of his life, are presented together in a historical critical edition for the first time. Included are also a newspaper report of Science as a Vocation and the notes Weber used for Politics as a Vocation Through an introduction as well as through editorial reports and detailed commentaries the speeches, which Weber had revised for publication, are made accessible to the reader as never before. They contain Weber's view of the modern world and its meaning problems in essence. German description: Auf Einladung des Freistudentischen Bundes, Landesverband Bayern, sprach Max Weber am 7. November 1917 zunachst uber Wissenschaft als Beruf, am 28. Januar 1919 uber Politik als Beruf in Munchen. Beide Vortrage waren Teil einer Reihe 'Geistige Arbeit als Beruf' und sollten aus der Sicht der Veranstalter Sachverstandigengutachten sein. Weber nutzte beide Gelegenheiten, um nicht nur uber die aussere Seite dieser Berufe, sondern auch uber ihre innere Seite, ihren Sinn, zu sprechen. Beider Vortrage wurden in uberarbeiteter Form zuerst 1919 als Broschuren publiziert. Sie sind zu klassischen Texten der Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften geworden. Seit ihrem Erscheinen haben sie die Diskussion um den Sinn der Wissenschaft in der Industriegesellschaft und der Politik in der Massendemokratie mitbestimmt. Die Vortrage gehoren nach Anlass, Adressatenkreis und Zielsetzung zusammen. Deshalb wurden sie hier in einem Band ediert. Dies ist ein Novum. Neu ist auch, dass Vorformen der Vortrage mitgeteilt werden - im Falle von Wissenschaft als Beruf ein Zeitungsbericht, im Falle von Politik als Beruf Webers Stichwortmanuskript - und dass der Vergleich zwischen Vorform und Druckfassung durch die Textprasentation erleichtert wird. Dies erlaubt es dem Leser, die Textgenese zu verfolgen. In der Einleitung werden die werk-, zeit- und theoriegeschichtlichen Zusammenhange skizziert, in denen die Vortrage stehen. Editorische Berichte und Sachkommentare schliessen die Texte fur den Leser weiter auf. Deren andauernde Aktualitat kommt nicht zuletzt auch daher, dass Weber hier eine 'philosophische' Position formuliert, die um die Begriffe Berufspflicht, Selbstbegrenzung und Personlichkeit zentriert ist. Es geht ihm in beiden Vortragen letztlich um das Schicksal des Menschen in der modernen Welt.