Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction by Stephen Kalberg (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction by Stephen Kalberg Gregor Fitzi Stephen Kalberg, Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), 535 pp. (pbk). ISBN 9780367497286. £27.99. As is the case for every 'classical author', the history of Weber's reception has its twists and turns. This should lead to a re-evaluation of the very concept of the 'classics,' at least within sociological theory. At different stages of the twentieth century, Simmel, Troeltsch, and Weber experienced a rediscovery of their works thanks to the financial engagement of German scientific institutions and academies. They were thus able to rise from the partial or complete oblivion to which they had been condemned since the mid 1920s. (Durkheim, in contrast, remains the last 'classic of sociology' without a complete works' edition.) Starting in the 1950s, Weber's historical influence has been characterized by successive waves of rediscovery and critique: among many others, one only needs to think of his reception by Parsons, Schutz, Lazarsfeld, Winckelmann, Mommsen, Tenbruck, Hennis, Lepsius, and Schluchter. In this context, Weber's historical-sociological research has often been contraposed to the systematic foundation of sociology (for example by Tenbruck) as well as to his 'political thought' (ideal-typically through Mommsen). In Germany, different groups of scholars thus gathered around Weber 'the historian of religion', Weber the 'founding father of sociology', or in critical gesture against 'Weber the nationalist political thinker'. These conflict lines have historical roots in the long durée of German academic schools that few remember. It is interesting to note that it was Hans Freyer who in 1930 sanctioned the preference of the new-to-be established folkish sociology for a 'science of reality', one that should be inspired in a very particular way by Weber's historical-sociological method. According to Freyer, Weber was to become the mentor of a historicist-existentialist sociology suited to the political project of the 'revolution from the right'. Weber's systematic sociology, on the other hand, ought instead be rejected, according to Freyer, because it was too close to Simmel's 'humanistic sociology', against which the nascent zeitgeist of the 1930s held many reservations if not resentments. This attitude was unconsciously transmitted over the [End Page 243] years and often moulded the pros and contras of Weber's reception after 1945. Placed before the cyclopean enterprise of establishing a critical-historical edition of Weber's works, the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (1984–2020), the controversies over Weber's oeuvre ended in a compromise that in some ways aligned with the deconstructive zeitgeist of the 1980s. Weber's texts, whether published at the date of his death, ready for publication, or still in manuscript form, were to appear in the edition 'in the state in which they were available', without making any attempt to reconstruct the structure of the works that the author had not finished, in particular Economy and Society. Today, Weber's works thus present themself to the interpreter in the form of a disiecta membra, which become even more impenetrable, especially for new generations of scholars. This may seem an irrelevant problem for an age that still lulls itself under the postmodern illusion that it does not need solid analytical tools to understand the transformation of contemporary societies and their environmental impact. For a more up-to-date sociology, Weber's oeuvre would only be decoration. As a prominent colleague observed at a congress of the Italian Sociological Association dedicated to the centenary of Weber's death, 'we read Weber, even if we know that it is useless'. Yet with economic crises, social conflicts, the political populism of the last decade, and today's looming environmental disaster, some alarm bells have gone off. The return of imperialist warfare, in the Ukraine and possibly elsewhere, only confirms the soundness of these 'modern concerns'. A question thus arises: can sociological theory in general—and its Weberian variety in particular—be reorganized in such a way that makes it possible to face the challenges of contemporary societies? Or must societal diagnosis surrender before the reassuring description of the 'world-society' that systems theory provides, even if it is based on axiomatic assumptions...