Max Weber in America

Me and my wife visited the United States in 1904 after sending the first part of “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” to press. The trip was a turning point in my life and it played a pivotal role in shaping his ideas. This new book by Lawrence Scaff carefully reconstructs this important episode in my career, and shows how the subsequent critical reception of my work was as American a story as the trip itself. The book provides details about the visit: what I did (for example, participated in the famous Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis), what I saw roaming the streets of New York and Chicago, whom I met ( W.E.B. Du Bois and William James) and why, and how these experiences profoundly influenced my thought on capitalism, immigration, science and culture, Romanticism, race, diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. Well, I’m biased, but this is a splendidly researched and outstanding work.