General Economic History

Sociologist, historian and political economist, Max Weber is one of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His astonishing range and penetrating insights resulted in many influential books spanning religion, society, politics, and economics, permanently affecting the direction of the social sciences.

General Economic History, published in 1923 (three years after Weber's death) and compiled from meticulous notes taken by his students, ranks as one of his most important books. It is a landmark work in economic history. From early forms of exchange in pre-capitalist households and villages, through industry and the beginnings of commerce, to the evolution of trade and money, Weber tells the epic story of the development of Western capitalism. At its heart, he argues, capitalism is driven by two immensely powerful forces: the basic, material needs that human beings seek to fulfil; and the fundamental but intangible spirit that sets capitalism in motion.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Introduction and, for the first time in English, a translation of Weber’s original "Conceptual Preface" to the German edition, both by Keith Tribe. Also included are some corrections to the main text.

Max Weber (1864–1920) has had a major influence on the development of the social sciences and humanities, and is today widely regarded as a leading analyst of modernity. His father was a National Liberal politician in Berlin, the family of his mother were in the textile business. This latter connection enabled him to resign his Professorship at Heidelberg in 1903 and live as an independent scholar until 1919, when he was appointed to a chair in Munich. A figure of national significance even before he was appointed to a chair in political economy and finance in Freiburg in 1894, his extensive contributions to newspapers and journals, speeches on politics and scholarship, and editorial work is only now being fully appreciated. Even his most famous book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (also available in Routledge Classics), was originally two linked essays published in the journal he edited with Werner Sombart and Edgar Jaffé in 1904–1905. His public lecture "Politics as a Vocation," given in Munich in early 1919, remains a landmark statement of party politics and the demands of modern political life.