General Economic History

by Max Weber, Frank H. Knight (Translator)

Overview

2013 Reprint of 1927 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Max Weber's "General Economic History" is based on his lecture notes and compiled shortly after his death. In this work Weber proposes an institutional theory of the rise of capitalism in the west. Unlike in his classic work on the Protestant ethic, religion is given a minor role. The emphasis of the work lies instead on the place of the state and calculable law in allowing economic actors to predict exchange for gain. Weber's institutional theory of capitalism was rediscovered in the early 1980s by writers like Randall Collins, Daniel Chirot, and Douglass C. North, who worked to replace theories based largely on Immanuel Wallerstein's "World Systems" theory. Though today read primarily by sociologists and social philosophers, Weber's work did have a significant influence on Frank Knight, one of the founders of the neoclassical Chicago school of economics, who translated Weber's General Economic History into English in 1927.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614275435
Publisher:	Martino Fine Books
Publication date:	12/11/2013
Pages:	420
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Routledge Classics Edition Keith Tribe Conceptual Preface Part 1: Household, Clan, Village and Manor 1. Agricultural Organization and the problem of Agrarian Communism 2. Property Systems and Social Groups 3. The Origin of Seigniorial Proprietorship 4. The Manor 5. The Position of the Peasants in Various Western Countries Before the Entrance of Capitalism 6. Capitalistic Development of the Manor Part 2: Industry and Mining Down to the Beginning of the Capitalistic Development 7. Principal Forms of the Economic Organization of Industry 8. Stages in the Development of Industry and Mining 9. The Craft Guilds 10. The Origin of the European Guilds 11. Disintegration of the Guilds and Development of the Domestic System 12. Shop Production. The Factory and its Fore-Runners 13. Mining Prior to the Development of Modern Capitalism Part 3: Commerce and Exchange in the Pre-Capitalistic Age 14. Points of Departure in the Development of Commerce 15. Technical Requisites for the Transportation of Goods 16. Forms of Organization of Transportation and of Commerce 17. Forms of Commercial Enterprise 18. Mercantile Guilds 19. Money and Monetary History 20. Banking and Dealings in Money in the Pre-Capitalistic Age 21. Interests in the Pre-Capitalistic Period Part 4: The Origin of Modern Capitalism 22. The Meaning and Presuppositions of Modern Capitalism 23. The External Facts in the Evolution of Capitalism 24. The First Great Speculative Crises 25. Free Wholesale Trade 26. Colonial Policy from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century 27. The Development of Industrial Technique 28. Citizenship 29. The Rational State 30. The Evolution of the Capitalistic Spirit. Index

Editorial Reviews

Max Weber (1864-1922) belongs to the German school of historical sociologists and ranks with Werner Sombart as a leading exponent of the historical development of social life…. The expression of a natural wish that Weber had actually written this book with his own hand must not be construed as ingratitude to the editors and students who, with commendable enterprise, took pains to pass on so much important and scholarly work to those who had not the privilege of hearing the lectures.” —Alfred Plummer, The Economic Journal “This volume contains a collection of lectures on economic history by Max Weber, who laboured for many years to fashion out a system of sociology and won the highest renown in Germany…. [S]o well worth study is this book that it must surely inspire its readers with the desire that Weber’s principal works should be also rendered into English.” —R. F. Harrod, Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs "The special student will find all manner of delight in the illuminating treatment of particular points. The general reader will plow through the book with increasing pleasure." —Max Lerner "Succinct and suggestive . . . will compel specialists to think." —London Times.

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