Max Weber

"Politics as a vocation", "the protestant ethic" and "charismatic leadership" are all key phrases of Max Weber's (1864-1920) which have become common parlance in newspaper editorials. And yet Max Weber is still little known. Joachim Radkau has now written the first great biography of the man who exposed the fundamental structures of politics, the economy and society in the modern world. Max Weber experienced at first hand, on the cusp of the twentieth century, how all areas of life were being subordinated to rationalisation. This experience provided the theme for his life's work.

A polymath, who wasn't cowed by apparent boundaries between subjects, he researched how humankind had distanced itself from nature and placed the systems of politics and the economy in its place. His life, including his unusual marriage to the feminist Marianne Weber, was primarily concerned with this research. The intellectual elite of his time met in his Heidelberg salon. Joachim Radkau brings Max Weber's life, works and era together to create a lively panorama of a time whose changes are still felt today.