The Vocation Lectures: 'Science as a Vocation'/'Politics as a Vocation' by Max Weber , David S. Owen , Tracy B. Strong (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews 125 tion; 'streets' in a natural state, usually doused with petroleum twice each summer to prevent dust, and smelling accordingly; wooden churches of at least 4-5 denominations... Add to this the usual tangle of telegraph wires, and electric trainlines under construction, for the 'town' extends into the unbounded distance. Weber met up with the Democratic politician Robert L. Owen, Cherokee in descent, and who became Senator for Oklahoma in 1907 till 1925. The federal government was operating a programme of allowing the sale of the Indian Territories and those lots were quickly passing out of Indian hands into those of adventurer capitalists. Weber observed that Leatherstocking romanticism was being crushed by the new capitalistic culture. Owen opposed the manner of the land-sales, which were open to huge abuse, in the name of Emersonian self-reliance. Owen himself was a devout Presbyterian, and so an advocate of an ethical style of life. William Swatos and Peter Kivisto chart the progress of Weber's ascent in Ameri can sociology. Parsons' translation of PESC was barely noted in 1930 but by 1964 Weber had become part of the canon, not least through Parsons' own The Structure of Social Action, the bigger picture provided by Gerth and Mills' selection, and the advocacy of the New School of Social Research under the leadership of Emil Lederer. What is not explained is the thirst for Weber in American sociology. Gorski, as well as Stephen Kalberg, raises the issue of how much we want to retain of the specific arguments of the PESC. Gorski, in plunging into the debates of economic history post-Weber—Postan, Braudel, Wallenstein, Douglas North and so on—creates a reading of Weber not narrowly focused on the 1904-1905 texts. Weber, in his 'Author7s Introduction' of 1920, talked about a wider and more general history of occidental rationalism in all areas of society. Kalberg examines the ethical basis of civic associations in American agrarian life, a type of communalism informed by Puritan values. The embeddedness of values in agrarian life has not survived the continuing move into the cities, where today a set of recreational and entertainment values congruent with a debt-laden consumerism predominate and undercut self reliant individualism. That subsequent development belongs to another narrative: of contemporary capitalism's close and exploitative relationship to the exploration of modern selfhood. So, today we have a new capitalism, a reconstitution of social groups, and a new set of dispositions—not Puritan, but still operable with Weberian methods. This book greatly furthers the research agenda and will be invaluable to advanced sociology courses. Sam Whimster* London Metropolitan University Sam Whimster* Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures: 'Science as a Vocation'/'Politics as a Vocation' (trans. Rodney Livingstone; Introduction [and ed.] David S. Owen and Tracy B. Strong; Indianapolis, IN; Hackett, 2004), pp. lxxv + 94. ISBN 0-87220-666-1 (hbk), 0-87220 665-3 (pbk). £27.95/£9.95. The editors and the translator have for the first time produced a book in English containing these two lectures alone. It is, therefore, to be welcomed. The work is a * A condensed version of this review has appeared in Contemporary Sociology.© Max Weber Studies 2007. 126 Max Weber Studies translation of Max Weber's Wissenschaft als Beruf (1917/1919) and Politik als Beruf (1919), edited by Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Wolfgang Schluchter with the collabo ration of Birgitt Morgenbrod (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1994), which itself forms part of the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. The essays were first translated into English by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills in their edited collection From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford Uni versity Press, 1946). Subsequently, Politik als Beruf appeared in translation by Ronald Speirs in the collection that he edited with Peter Lassman in the Cambridge blue books series as Weber: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), while Wissenschaft als Beruf was translated by Irving Velody in the collection he edited, again with Peter Lassman, entitled Max Weber's 'Science as a Vocation' (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989). The question then to be asked is how does the new translation compare to the original one? The results...