[MWS 16.1 (2016) 113-138] ISSN 1470-8078 http://dx.doi.org/10.15543/MWS/2016/1/9© Max Weber Studies 2016, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. Book Reviews Hans-Peter Müller and Steffen Sigmund, eds., Max Weber-Handbuch: Leben-Werk-Wirkung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2014), xi + 425 pp. (hbk). ISBN 978-3-476-02432-9. €59.95. So, Max Weber, the great editor of and contributor to handbooks, now has one dedicated to him alone. Handbooks are usually subject specific—law, economics, politics—and their closest equivalent is the encyclopaedia. The difference with the latter, is that the handbook is more of a teaching aid, working from main definitional items to illustrative unpacking of the definitions. Open Chapter One of Economy and Society and the definitions are in large font followed by longer passages of explanatory illustration in a smaller font. If in the conspectus of his academic knowledge we see Weber as an encyclopaedist, does this handbook represent a return to the Handbuch tradition in which Weber worked? In one sense this would be true to Weber. His mind gathered into itself material from a large array of specialisms and disciplinary approaches. What he did with this material presents as the problem of the oeuvre: what are its unities, what is its developmental logic, was it complete or left unfinished? But push back through to the Handbuch tradition of classification, and that material is re-indexed as an alphabetical list of his major concepts, or existing concepts he inflected through his own definition and usage. This is a neat idea with obvious pedagogic advantage. What instructors and lecturers have the confidence, given the state of MaxWeberian scholarship, to tell their students to read The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism and then such and such chapter in Economy and Society, ditto General Economic History. Instead, if students want to become Weber-literate, they need just work through the concepts; everything from Arbeit und Beruf, Beziehung, Bürgertum through to Wertsphären und Lebensordnungen, Wert(urteils)freiheit , and Wirtschaft. The scholarly editors and authors have done the heavy work and poured the relevant material from oeuvre into the receptacle of concept. 114 Max Weber Studies© Max Weber Studies 2016. We can anticipate one problem with this approach. Take the first Begriff listed: Arbeit und Beruf. Weber’s treatment of this in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism has marked idiosyncrasies compared with his sociological exposition in Chapter Two of Economy and Society. This entry, penned by Hans-Peter Müller, takes up six columns, including a wider reading list. He dives into Chapter 2 of Economy and Society to argue, correctly in my view, that Weber’s treatment of work and occupation has to be differentiated from the tradition of Adam Smith and Karl Marx and their use of the idea of the division of labour. The Henderson/Parsons English translation is blind to this, since Weber talks not of the division of labour (Arbeitsteilung ) but of the distribution of performative work (Leistungsverteilung ). (Performative here means output, the sweat of one’s brow, not Searlian speech acts.) This leads to a further distinction between work that allocates (directing workers, directing slaves, etc.) and the work itself. Drawing out the implications of this for Anglo-readings of Weber cannot be gone into here, but they are not unimportant. So we can have confidence in Müller’s handling of Arbeit. What of Beruf? For Weber, in Economy and Society, this is tied uncontroversially to the notion of training, profession, and specialization as well as barriers to entry into a Beruf. Müller then cross-relates Beruf to the first Beruf, that of the magician. ‘Magicwork’, so to speak, involves the analytical sequence of performance—work—occupation; these have their comparative reference points in antiquity, the middle ages, and modernity. Accordingly we are referenced to the Roman Agrarian History, the Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum, and Economy and Society (E&S). This is all masterfully handled, but where does Protestant Beruf fit in? It gets only a glancing mention: the Puritan willed his own vocation (Berufsmensch) but in the contemporary world, as Weber puts it at the end...