Max Weber in America

by Lawrence A. Scaff

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691147796
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/30/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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

What People are Saying About This

Richard Swedberg

Students of Weber have long been waiting for a study of his 1904 visit to the United States. It is finally here, splendidly researched and beautifully written by one of the foremost experts on Weber. The reader gets to follow Weber roaming the streets of New York and Chicago, meeting with luminaries such as W.E.B. Du Bois and William James, and participating in the famous Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis, which occasioned the visit.
— Richard Swedberg, Cornell University

Joachim Radkau

This is an outstanding and pioneering work. Scaff offers a vivid picture of Weber's American experience as it has never been written before, and his book is full of fresh insights. He possesses a deep and detailed knowledge of both the American scene and of Weber's German contexts and background—few Weberians combine both qualifications as excellently as Scaff does. Reading this book was pure pleasure.
— Joachim Radkau, Bielefeld University, Germany

Guenther Roth

Max Weber in America is a masterpiece. Scaff is recognized as a leading Weber scholar and social theorist, and here he demonstrates the intellectual significance of Weber's visit to the United States both for Weber's work and for its subsequent American reception. There is no comparable book.
— Guenther Roth, professor emeritus, Columbia University

From the Publisher

"Students of Weber have long been waiting for a study of his 1904 visit to the United States. It is finally here, splendidly researched and beautifully written by one of the foremost experts on Weber. The reader gets to follow Weber roaming the streets of New York and Chicago, meeting with luminaries such as W.E.B. Du Bois and William James, and participating in the famous Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis, which occasioned the visit."—Richard Swedberg, Cornell University

"This is an outstanding and pioneering work. Scaff offers a vivid picture of Weber's American experience as it has never been written before, and his book is full of fresh insights. He possesses a deep and detailed knowledge of both the American scene and of Weber's German contexts and background—few Weberians combine both qualifications as excellently as Scaff does. Reading this book was pure pleasure."—Joachim Radkau, Bielefeld University, Germany

"Max Weber in America is a masterpiece. Scaff is recognized as a leading Weber scholar and social theorist, and here he demonstrates the intellectual significance of Weber's visit to the United States both for Weber's work and for its subsequent American reception. There is no comparable book."—Guenther Roth, professor emeritus, Columbia University

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the 2012 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award, History of Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association

From the Publisher

"In 1904, shortly after emerging from severe psychological illness and between the two essays that made up The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber traveled with his wife, Marianne, to the U.S., where he would deliver a paper at the Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis. Drawing from a rich variety of archival material, Scaff has written the definitive story of that trip."

Choice

[T]his is an extraordinary work of dedicated research, performed by a scholar who came to the task with genuine Weberian instincts. Scaff treats his subject with an empathy, sobriety and fairness that are a model to social and political scientists. Admittedly, not many in our ranks could approach Weber's heights of scholarly innovation, because, as Scaff quietly reminds us, he saw further and deeper into American society than most native born or foreign researchers. Max Weber in America is a tribute to a scholar who built his social theory on scientific notions of objectivity and moral impulses of decency.

European Legacy - Irving Louis Horowitz

[A] readable intellectual biography of a major work in social science as well as a fascinating discussion of the politics and personalities behind what seems . . . an inevitable and unalterable stand alone work. Those unfamiliar with Weber may flounder at first, but the anecdotes about the various people and places should hold the reader until the rhythm of the work becomes comfortable and the ideas fall into place. A well developed and insightful presentation should maintain Scaff's status as a leading Weber scholar.

49th Parallel - John Barnhill

Given its scale, the uniqueness of its insights and the relentless industry displayed, this is a work of scholarship which is most unlikely to be superseded. The study comes at Weber from an unexpected angle and adds much to the understanding of this multifaceted giant founder of sociology.

Canadian Journal of Sociology - Kieran Flanagan

This close-grained reading of Weber's American trip and the American dissemination of his writings sheds illuminating light on both. . . . Weber scholars will find Scaff's meticulous treatment of the translation of Weber's texts extremely useful.

H-Net Reviews - Daniel Rodgers

Scaff has undertaken a prodigious amount of archival research in tracing Weber's path through the United States, and it is difficult to conceive of what would comprise a more definitive examination of this period in Weber's life and work.

Journal of American History - John G. Gunnell

Max Weber in America ranks among the very best interpretations of Max Weber's sociology.

American Journal of Sociology - Bryan S. Turner

[A] readable intellectual biography of a major work in social science as well as a fascinating discussion of the politics and personalities behind what seems . . . an inevitable and unalterable stand alone work. Those unfamiliar with Weber may flounder at first, but the anecdotes about the various people and places should hold the reader until the rhythm of the work becomes comfortable and the ideas fall into place. A well developed and insightful presentation should maintain Scaff's status as a leading Weber scholar.
— John Barnhill

49th Parallel

Given its scale, the uniqueness of its insights and the relentless industry displayed, this is a work of scholarship which is most unlikely to be superseded. The study comes at Weber from an unexpected angle and adds much to the understanding of this multifaceted giant founder of sociology.
— Kieran Flanagan

Canadian Journal of Sociology

This close-grained reading of Weber's American trip and the American dissemination of his writings sheds illuminating light on both. . . . Weber scholars will find Scaff's meticulous treatment of the translation of Weber's texts extremely useful.
— Daniel Rodgers

H-Net Reviews

Scaff has undertaken a prodigious amount of archival research in tracing Weber's path through the United States, and it is difficult to conceive of what would comprise a more definitive examination of this period in Weber's life and work.
— John G. Gunnell

Journal of American History

Max Weber in America ranks among the very best interpretations of Max Weber's sociology.
— Bryan S. Turner

American Journal of Sociology