Retrospective: Max Weber

Abstract

Although originally published fifty years ago, Marianne Weber's biography of her husband Max Weber still remains the most important single book on Weber, as it provides the only published source for many aspects of his life and thought. I It is also, I think, still the best book on Weber, and its publication in English is long overdue. Marianne Weber wrote the biography in the years of her intense mourning for Weber and immediately after she oversaw the publication of Weber's major unpublished works. With these two projects she attempted to convince the world of his stature as a truly great man. Personally, she acknowledged gratefully that he helped her achieve her own intellectual independence and productivity and that he encouraged her feminist and other political activities. Weber had the stature of an important German professor at his death, but the posthumous publication of his works and this biography did in fact start a process by which he has become a major figure in the Western intellectual tradition. About 700 pages in both English and German, the biography contains an immense wealth of detail. Marianne Weber quotes Weber's letters often and at great length. Although she only devotes summary passages to his scholarly work, one can get the impression that virtually nothing else is excluded. She even begins with a chapter on Weber's family before his birth. Aside from the factual details, she provides many insights into the man. He had tremendous drives in his own work, great sensitivity toward people unlike himself, and a demanding sense of honor which clearly even his wife thought he pushed to extremes. He passionately engaged in politics, and his major works were written under the continued threat of renewed psychological collapse. Given the intensive and voluminous work on Weber in the intervening years, it is necessary to ask why this biography should still retain such a commanding position. It is a question both of sources and of the kind of attention Weber has received. With respect to sources, many sections of the biography are clearly based on personal recollection. Marianne Weber makes constant references to what they both thought and said. Moreover, she had possession of Weber's personal Nacchliass, and many friends and colleagues provided her with letters written by Weber. It seems that a considerable part of the Nachlass is now lost. Marianne Weber in fact destroyed some documents herself. How much remains is unclear, but his letters are scattered in a number of different archives in both Germanies. Only Wolfgang J. Mommsen seems to have had an opportunity to examine the materials in all the locations, and his extensive search for additional letters and unpublished work has led to the most complete listing so far of extant archival sources.2 A few sources on Weber's life have been published