Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures by Max Weber

Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures by Max Weber

A new translation of two celebrated lectures on politics, academia, and the disenchantment of the world.

The German sociologist Max Weber is one of the most venturesome, stimulating, and influential theorists of the modern condition. Among his most significant works are the so-called vocation lectures, published shortly after the end of World War I and delivered at the invitation of a group of student activists. The question the students asked Weber to address was simple and haunting- In a modern world characterized by the division of labor, economic expansion, and unrelenting change, was it still possible to consider an academic or political career as a genuine calling? In response Weber offered his famous diagnosis of "the disenchantment of the world," along with a challenging account of the place of morality in the classroom and in research. In his second lecture he introduced the notion of political charisma, assigning it a central role in the modern state, even as he recognized that politics is more than anything "a slow and difficult drilling of holes into hard boards."

Damion Searls's new translation brings out the power and nuance of these celebrated lectures. Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon's introduction describes their historical and biographical background, reception, and influence. Weber's effort to rethink the idea of a public calling at the start of the tumultuous twentieth century is revealed to be as timely and stirring as ever.

Starting out as a professor of law and economics at a young age in Imperial Germany, Max Weber (1864-1920) had a brilliant career interrupted by illness, which ultimately freed him from academic constraints to create the great interdisciplinary body of work for which he is famous today. Transcending the German contemporary context, his writings have become, through a series of transatlantic transmissions, one of the foundation stones of American and international social science and indispensible reading in several disciplines. Central aspects of his oeuvre, foremost Economy and Society, remain of continued importance in the age of globalization and its counter-movements.

Guenther Roth, born in Germany in 1931, began his American career in 1953, dealing extensively with Max Weber's scholarly and political writings in their contemporary context and their impact on American social science. Since his retirement from Columbia University in 1997, he has written about Weber's cosmopolitan family history and the tensions in his life between scholarship, politics and personal relations.

Claus Wittich, born in Germany in 1932, was for many years a specialist for eastern European economies at US universities, then the United Nations in New York and Geneva. His recent work focuses on academic links between Germany and Russia from the 18th to the 20th century.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781681373898
ISBN 10	1681373890
Title	Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures
Author	Max Weber
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The New York Review of Books, Inc
Year published	2020-02-04
Number of pages	104
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.