Weber, Passion and Profits

Jack Barbalet is Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Sydney. He is a leading scholar of classical sociology and social theory and his previous publications include Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure: A Macrosociological Approach (Cambridge, 2001).

• Introduction; 1. From the inaugural lecture to the Protestant ethic: political education and German futures; 2. From the Protestant ethic to the vocation lectures: Beruf, rationality and emotion; 3. Passions and profits: the emotional origins of capitalism in seventeenth-century England; 4. Protestant virtues and deferred gratification: Max Weber and Adam Smith on the spirit of capitalism; 5. Ideal type, institutional and evolutionary analyses of the origins of capitalism: Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen; 6. The Jewish question: religious doctrine and sociological method; Conclusion.

Review of the hardback: 'Where secondary sources about Max Weber's oeuvre often show too much deference to the old master, Jack Barbalet's re-appraisal of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism refreshingly dissects and contests its core thesis. Not only does Barbalet provide a sophisticated historical contextualisation of this highly influential book and trace its links to Weber's other writings, he also deploys his expertise in the sociology of emotions to mount a serious challenge to Weber's central arguments and to contrast them with those of Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen. This makes Weber, Passion and Profits a real tour de force, and surely required reading for anyone interested in Max Weber's ideas and in the history of social thought.' Patrick Baert, Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge