Max Weber at 100: Legacies and Prospects

The year 2020 marked the centennial of the death of Max Weber, the German sociologist, scholar of world religions, economic historian, social philosopher, and theoretician of modern political life. This volume presents a collection of essays on the legacy and relevance of his thought. The authors, an international array of distinguished scholars, are drawn from various disciplines--philosophy, political science, intellectual history, and sociology. They comprise both experts who have contributed to the ongoing study of Weber's work and theorists who discern his enduring bond with key problems in the humanities and social sciences. Max Weber at 100 seeks to understand the ways that Weber's legacy may take shape in the century to come. It contends that Weber's sustained relevance will derive not only--and perhaps not even predominantly--from his empirical claims, such as the "Weber thesis" about the origins of capitalism. Two key dimensions of his thought will play an increasingly important role in determining his significance: his inchoate but equally evocative theories about ecology, global capitalism, imperialism, democracy, and gender; and his broader, non-empirical or even philosophical observations concerning questions of human nature, value freedom, objectivity, secularization, rationalization, and disenchantment. The contributors cast a critical eye over Weber's oeuvre to ask what can still be learned from his work, and how his legacy might be contested or transformed.

Joshua Derman is Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. in modern European history from Princeton University and his A.B. in philosophy from Harvard University. His research focuses on modern German history and the international dimensions of political and social thought. His book, Max Weber in Politics and Social Thought: From Charisma to Canonization (Cambridge University Press, 2012), is the first comprehensive history of Weber's early impact in Germany and the United States.

Peter E. Gordon is the Amabel B. James Professor of History and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Philosophy and Department of Government at Harvard University. A graduate of Reed College and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D 1997), he is the author of many books on the history of modern European philosophy and social theory, including Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos (Harvard University Press, 2010), which received the Barzun Prize from the American Philosophical Society; and A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity (University of Chicago Press, 2024).