BOOK REVIEWS
ance in social structure. Because he offers these
as tentative and only as a means of illustrating his
position, attacking the specific items on his list is
both premature and irrelevant. The list is repro-
duced here merely to show that Etzioni seriously
advances the view that human beings have basic
needs and that these needs can be more readily
and fully satisfied in some societal structures than
others.
In view of the above, it is possible to understand
why the volume is long. The development of his
complex analysis precludes brevity. Further, the
challenge to sociological doctrines that he offers
would have been rej ected by all but a few if it had
been presented in briefer form. The significance
of this volume lies in the fact that it is impossible
to determine at this time whether its rejection
would be more than Etzioni's personal tragedy.
ROBERT L. STEWART
University of South Carolina
MAX WEBER-EcONOMY AND SOCIETY. AN OUT-
LINE OF INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY. Edited by Guen-
ther Roth and Claus Wittich. 3 Vols. New
York: Bedminister Press, 1968. 1,469 pp. $40.00.
This three volume complete English edition of
Max Weber's major work, Economy and Society
has been long awaited and ought to be regarded
as an important discovery by American sociologists.
For, while Max Weber has been pervasively quoted
in American sociological writing in the last two or
three decades, this has been done in piecemeal fash-
ion and in accordance with the specialized interests
of particular authors. For some, Weber linked
Protestantism and capitalism, for others he pro-
vided a basic scheme for the study of bureaucracy
or the city or the forms of political domination,
for still others he seemed to have invented the
concept of charisma or ideal-typical methodology
or the principle that scholarly investigation in the
social sciences ought to be "value-free." Actually,
all these things are not disparate intellectual con-
cerns, but must be seen in a larger context. Be-
sides, important chapters in Economy and Society
remained untranslated and hence, because of the
lack of linguistic knowledge among American so-
ciologists, unknown. Finally, Talcott Parsons' in-
fluential analysis in The Structure- of Social Action
promoted the erroneous notion that Max Weber
was primarily an action theorist when in actual fact
sociology for Weber was an auxiliary science in
the service of the comparative comprehension of
the processes of history. All this can now be
remedied.
The Roth-Wittich edition contains the entire
range of Wirtschaft und Gesellschajt, chiefly in
accordance with the critically revised fourth edition
by Johannes Winckelmann, plus two appendices,
an index of scholars, historical names and sub-
jects, an introduction by Guenther Roth, and notes.
The previously existing translations by Gerth and
Mills, Henderson and Parsons, Fischoff, Kolegar,
Rheinstein and Shils are included, but revised, and
269
hitherto untranslated chapters are newly translated
by Roth and Wittich. However, the reader must
be cautioned that the revision of the old transla-
tions does not go far enough. Since space is
limited, I am restricting myself to one example.
Right at the start of the Roth-Wittich rendition
of Weber's text (p. 5) we find the sentence: "All
interpretation of meaning, like all scientific observa-
tions, strives for clarity and verifiable accuracy
of insight and comprehension (Evidenz)." The
lengthy explanatory note to this sentence obligingly
adds that "this is an imperfect rendering of the
Downloaded from http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Iowa Libraries/Serials Acquisitions on June 28, 2015
German term Evidenz, for which, unfortunately,
there is no good English equivalent." Max Weber's
original runs like this: HAlle Deutung strebi, wie
alle Wissenschajt neberhaupi, nach Evidenz." Here
is a good example of how a clear Weberian sen-
tence can be made to sound complicated in transla-
tion. Besides, the word evidence is not German,
but Latin, and perfectly at home in English.
Guenther Roth's extensive and thorough intro-
ductory essay has many merits, but also some short-
comings. It plays down Weber as a theorist and
emphasizes Weber as a sociological historian. It
traces the development of Weber's intertwined
thinking on scholarship and politics from his early
writings in legal and economic history-especially
his economic theory and political typology of Ro-
man antiquity-via his position in academic con-
troversies, to the planning of Economy and Society
and to the analysis of the structure of this widely
ramified torso of what Weber had in mind:
Economy and Society, if seen in context, is a
Michelangelesque sketch of gigantic dimensions. A
comment on Weber's political writings and an
explanation of the principles of the Roth-Wittich
editing and translating efforts conclude the intro-
duction.
The exposition of Part Two of Economy and
Society, the older and more historical part, takes
up much more space than the analysis of Part One,
which is the later and more theoretical part. This
is justified because Part Two is partly known only
from isolated translations, partly (for instance, the
chapters concerning patriarchalism, patrimonial-
ism, and feudalism) entirely unknown, partly mis-
understood; the latter designation applies, among
others, to the chapter on charisma, especially to
the relation of charisma to military rulership at
all times and to modern democracy. Roth's em-
phasis is further justified in view of Weber's in-
tention, which was directed toward a cautiously
flexible comparative evaluation of ultimately in-
comparable historical processes, not at the construc-
tion of a rigid "system," or even a Kategorienlehre.
The latter was supposed to be a means to an end,
not an end in itself. It is informative to observe
that Weber starts, in the Logos article of 1913
(d. Appendix 1), with a tentative terminology,
only to modify, if not to discard, it in the end, in
the justly famous Chapter 1 (Part One) of the
entire work, on "basic sociological terms." But at
this point, Roth's underemphasis on Part One be-
comes detrimental. For one thing, what I have
270 SOCIAL FORCES
called the "prototype of the ideal type," namely
the concept of "economic man" is (contrary to
Schelting's fallacy) so thoroughly fused by Roth-
Wittich with "historical totality concepts," such as
feudalism and the like, as to almost disappear from
view. Further, Roth-Wittich apparently fail to
realize that the Logos terminology, which appears
at the beginning of Part Two, while historically
interesting, is terminologically confusing. That is
why Weber himself discarded it. In the older
terminology, Gemeinschaft means "group," Gemein-
schaftshandeln "social action"; Gesellschait means
"organization" and Gesellschaftshandeln "organ-
ized action." By 1918, however, Weber had adopted
Toennies' terminology. He used the terms Ver-
geme~nschaftung and Vergesellschaftung rather
than Gemeinschait and Gesellschaft because he in-
tended to emphasize processes in what Toennies
would have called "applied sociology" rather than
ideal constructs in "pure sociology." This is why
Weber, in his note to paragraph 9, Part One
(p. 41) draws attention to the fact that his ter-
minology "reminds" (not: "is similar to") ... "the
distinction made by Ferdinand Toennies in his
basic (not: pioneering) work, Gemeinschaft una
Gesellschajt;" In amplification, Weber goes on to
explain that he does not find it "convenient" for
his purposes to accept the specific meaning which
Toennies gave to these terms, namely, that they
are universal qualities, inherent in a variety of
ways, in all human relationships; Weber wanted
to use them purely ad hoc, for the purpose of
comprehending concrete historical processes. There
is a difference, then, in point of departure, pro-
cedure and aim, but no basic disagreement. The
imputation of an antagonism, or even no more than
a "distant politeness," between Toennies and Weber,
as suggested by Roth-Wittich, is untenable.
I doubt the appropriateness of the inclusion of
Max Weber's formidable paper on "Parliament and
Government in a reconstructed Germany" (Appen-
dix 2). The paper is fascinating in content and
serves as a documentation of Weber's superb qual-
ities as a political polemicist, but one feels ill-at-
ease to see it in company with his wide-ranging
analysis of the relations between economy and so-
ciety. Weber's more important political writings
should be combined in a separate volume in Eng-
lish translation, as has been the case in German.
All in all, however, the Roth-Wittich edition is a
landmark. The contents of these three volumes
ought to be eagerly absorbed by American sociol-
ogists.
WERNER ]. CAHNMAN
Rutgers
MAX WEBER'S IDEAL TYPE THEORY. By Rolf E.
Rogers. New York: Philosophical Library, 1969.
109 pp. $4.50.
This book combines Weber's own statements
about the ideal-typical method with explanatory
and critical expositions by Theodore Abel, Alex-
ander von Schelting, and Talcott Parsons, fol-
lowed by a concluding evaluation by the editor.
Abel's statement, published in 1929, stands up as
a good introduction to the concept itself. Von
Schelting's critical appraisal, written in 1934 and
translated by Rogers, is most fundamental in its
penetrating analysis, demonstrating that Weber
operated actually with three different kinds of ideal
types without clearly distinguishing them. Par-
sons' appraisal, dated 1939, aims at the adaption
of Weber's ideal-typical action scheme to Par-
sonian systems theory. Rogers makes this effort
central to his own contribution.
Downloaded from http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Iowa Libraries/Serials Acquisitions on June 28, 2015
The attempt at bringing Weber's conception of
ideal type back into the sociological discussion is
laudable. Rogers merits special praise for making
available, for the first time in English, the most
pertinent and searching analysis of von Schelting.
His own evaluation, however, invites criticism at
various points. All of these would warrant dis-
cussion, but we shall have to confine ourselves to
registering a few basic objections. First of all,
the suggestion to remedy the-actual or alleged-
shortcomings of Weber's conception of ideal type
by integrating it with Parsonian systems analysis
clashes with the fundamental ontological and meth-
odological assumptions of Weber. Granted that
his most famous ideal type, the "Protestant Ethic,"
in all its ingenuity raises serious methodological
and historical-substantive questions, their answers
would have to be sought in broader and deeper
concrete historical investigations rather than in
more elaborate abstract schemes of generalized
systems. But, of course, Rogers is entitled to the
pursuit of Parsonian objectives in this as in any
other respect. Unfortunately, his own efforts in
this direction reveal a failure to clearly distinguish
between (a) the methodological device as such and
specific substantive ideal types created with its
help, and correspondingly (b) analytically abstract
schemes and historically concrete social systems.
Nevertheless, it is hoped that the book will provoke
both discussions and further investigations.
HELMUT R. WAGNER
Hobart and William Smith College
HUMANITY AND MODERN SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT.
By R. P. Cuzzort. New York: Holt, Rinehart
& Winston, 1969. 350 pp. $4.95.
Most introductory textbooks in sociology follow
a routinized form of presentation of sociological
material. There is little variation in the classi-
fication of the factual content and in the examples
used to illustrate ideas. On occasion, a difference
in perspective is evident which is mainly a matter
of selection and emphasis rather than of differences
in approach.
Cuzzort's book is a welcome departure from this
routinized procedure of introducing students to
sociology. The novelty and originality of his ap-
proach consists, first, in the organization of soci-
ological material according to the contributions of
particular social scientists and the way they han-
dled controversial aspects of sociology; and, sec-