Max Weber

Personal Background and career history

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 Personal background
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber
• born in 1864, in Erfurt, Province of
Saxony, Prussia.
• German sociologist, philosopher, jurist,
and political economist
• best known for his thesis combining economic
sociology and the sociology of religion,
elaborated in his book The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism
• considered the father of modern sociology.
• died of pneumonia in 1920, aged 56

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 Family Background
• Oldest of the seven children of Max Weber Sr., a wealthy and prominent civil servant and member of the
National Liberal Party
• His father, Max Weber Sr., was a politically active lawyer.
• His involvement in public life immersed his home in both politics and academia, as his home welcomed many
prominent scholars and public figures
• Weber's 1876 Christmas presents to his parents, when he was thirteen years old, were two historical essays
entitled "About the course of German history, with special reference to the positions of the Emperor and the
Pope", and "About the Roman Imperial period from Constantine to the migration of nations".
• Growing up, he was bored with school a unimpressed with the teachers—who in turn resented what they
perceived as a disrespectful attitude—he secretly read all forty volumes of Goethe, and it has been recently
argued that this was an important influence on his thought and methodology.
• Over time, Weber would also be significantly affected by the marital tension between his father, "a man who
enjoyed earthly pleasures", and his mother, a devout Calvinist "who sought to lead an ascetic life

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 Education
• In 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student
• he worked as a junior lawyer.[17]
• In 1886 Weber passed the examination for Referender, comparable to the bar association examination in the
British and American legal systems. Throughout the late 1880s, Weber continued his study of law and history
• Earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a dissertation on legal history titled The history of commercial
partnerships in the Middle Ages.
• Two years later, having thus become a Privatdozent, Weber joined the University of Berlin's faculty, lecturing
and consulting for the government.

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 Early Career
• Weber married a distant cousin, Marianne Schnitger, in 1893, later a
feminist activist and author in her own right who was instrumental in
collecting and publishing Weber's journal articles as books after his death
• He got a job teaching economics at Freiburg University the following year,
before returning to Heidelberg in 1896 as a professor.
• In 1897, Max had a falling out with his father, which went unresolved.
After his father died in 1897, Weber suffered a mental breakdown. He was
plagued by depression, anxiety and insomnia, which made it impossible
for him to teach. He spent the next five years in and out of sanatoriums.
• When Weber was finally able to resume working in 1903, he became an
editor at a prominent social science journal.
• In 1904, he was invited to deliver a lecture at the Congress of Arts and
Sciences in St. Louis, Missouri and later became widely known for his
famed essays, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
• These essays, published in 1904 and 1905, discussed his idea that the rise
of modern capitalism was attributable to Protestantism, particularly
Calvinism. ADD A FOOTER
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 Late Career
• After a stint volunteering in the medical service during World War I, Weber published three more books on
religion in a sociological context.
• The Religion of China (1916), The Religion of India (1916) and Ancient Judaism (1917-1918)
• Contrasted their respective religions and cultures with that of the Western world by weighing the importance
of economic and religious factors, among others, on historical outcomes.
• Weber resumed teaching in 1918.
• He intended to publish additional volumes on Christianity and Islam, but he contracted the Pneumonia and
died in Munich on June 14, 1920.
• His manuscript of Economy and Society was left unfinished; it was edited by his wife and published in 1922.

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Thank You!