Max Webers historische Sozialökonomie / L'économie de Max Weber entre histoire et sociologie by Hinnerk Bruhns (review)

Abstract

264 Max Weber Studies abundantly, all the kinds of extradisci call for. Their framework excluded it—little of it had to do with 'dis ciplinary history.' But if one restricts one's account of 'historiogra phy' to disciplinary history narrowly conceived, one ought not to be shocked, shocked, to discover that extradisciplinary considerations do not play a particularly large role. Stephen Turner University of South Florida Stephen Turner Hinnerk Brahns, Max Webers historische Sozialökonomie / L'économie de Max Weber entre histoire et sociologie (Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden, 2014), xxi + 272 pp. ISBN 978-3-447-10309-1. €54.00. The series of 'Studies in Cultural and Social Sciences' published by Harrassowitz and edited by a trio of distinguished Weberians (Stefan Breuer, Eckhart Otto, and Hubert Treiber) continues to produce notable books on Weberian themes, though of course the series has a much wider remit than this. The present volume brings together a selection of essays by Hinnerk Bruhns, who is surely one of the most interesting and individual thinkers in the wide field of Weber stud ies. The volume is to be welcomed precisely because, although he is already well-known to readers of this journal, it allows us to under stand and appreciate his thought and identity much more fully. Two features in his biography immediately stand out: first, that in origin he is not a 'Weberian' but an ancient historian (xv); secondly that, while German by birth, since 1979 he has been based in France, and his deep commitment to Franco-German cultural interchange is clearly signalled by the twin titles of this book. (Nor should we over look his Italian connections and publications.) In both respects he feels (and I think justly) that he has enjoyed a good deal of freedom in reading and writing about Weber, and describes his engagement with him as 'pragmatic' (xiv). In other words, Weber is not to be taken either as a canonical text or an author in isolation, but should be seen as part of a wider stream of authors who have interested him as a practising historian—men such as Gustav Schmoller, Werner Sombart, Otto Hintze, M.I. Rostovzeff and Fernand Braudel. Hintze and Braudel both receive chapters in this collection (II.5, III.4), while Sombart and Schmoller are (respectively) almost continuously and frequently present throughout. There are then two more specialised essays which link Bruhns, Weber, and the ancient historian Christian© Max Weber Studies 2015. Book Reviews 265 Meier, of which I am by no mea reader should also bear in mind th is in large part essayistic, is far m printed here, and if I may make a no bibliography of his publicati allowed us to see more easily (for tion of Hintze's essays into Fren ceedings of a day conference on book on historical economics in G Weber (2004); and that he wrote also in 2004.1 No doubt he had his piece here, but still this is an obv comparison, and in principle its Once we understand this ident book's purposes. For while it is not only about him. It is also a dition of Weberian ideas, where engagement of French social scien is a major cultural fact in itsel with justifiable pride. As a resu like Weber's approach to moder is, it is 'one-sided'; it takes a parti ing points) and works out from French title of the book, which a is going to be paid to Max Web torian than is usually the case. T linked to a particular textual ag another significant presence in much from 'the entire Weberian oeuvre' but rather 'from its hard core and large parts of that which surrounds this core' (236). The overall result is a strongly historical Weber, an economistic Weber, an empirical Weber, and—as the inclusion of Hennis shows—there is also a significant dash of politics here, moderated as political econ omy. What is largely excluded is what we may call the sociologists' Weber. One hears little about the category of the 'social', ideal-types, 'Economy and Society' (except for c.2 of the final text on 'Funda mental sociological categories of economic activity') or the processes of rationalization...