Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations

481 Pages·2021·4.212 MB·English

by  Stephen Kalberg

INTRODUCTION
We live today in the Global Age. Social media communications and open market dynamics
now transcend all boundaries in pervasive ways. Cross-national networks of commerce and
technology expand without respect to geographical limitations; varieties of subcultures –
artistic, literary, scholarly, and sports – banish borders. International news arrives daily
from multiple sources. Our mind-set is increasingly believed to be cosmopolitan and many
commentators insist that all persons, in both hemispheres, are “global citizens” (Fukuyama,
2011; Sachs, 2020).
Moreover, the authority of each nation – and its legal entities – is experiencing a loss
of autonomy and the branch offices of non-governmental organizations across the globe
pronounce “universal” values, standards, hopes, and dreams. As a “world economy” and
a “world culture” spread widely, long-established and indigenous conventions, values, and
economic and political cultures seem to lose their vitality. Owing to this “world society”
and the “global unity” of people, trade, and finance that follows, the systematic study of
particular civilizations appears less and less necessary.
Civilizations, as bounded entities capable of defending across centuries value configura-
tions, traditions, and world views, seem to be vanishing. The sudden appearance of modern
capitalism has conveyed a full velocity jolt to China and India, for example, challenging
fundamentally their core values. Are the boundaries of Russian civilization still recogniz-
able despite the abrupt importation of an economic system – capitalism – heretofore ada-
mantly opposed? Has American civilization’s economic dynamism brought forth a sweeping
metamorphosis that has shattered all connections to a distinct religious heritage grounded in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?
The foundational components of civilizations seem more and more contested and in
flux, and less and less symbiotically interwoven and firm. Throughout the social sciences,
comparative research now widely investigates this vast transformation from the vantage
point of globalization’s “inexorable advance” and “homogenizing” technological, media,
and market thrusts. Values that have contributed for millennia to a civilization’s continuity
and cohesion now appear to be crumbling.
2 Introduction
That we have entered a new epoch can scarcely be debated. However, specific questions
regarding this “global turn” urgently command our attention: Does the “leveling” it implies
effectively banish “the particular?” Is a convergence process occurring to such an extent that
complex social processes rooted deeply in values and traditions – indeed, in civilizations –
are disappearing? Must the alterations called forth by the Global Age be viewed as implying
consequences of massive magnitude?
Voices opposed to this juggernaut are widespread. Many insist that the focus of glo-
balization theorists on the present downplays the complexities of civilizations and their
staying power (see Albrow, 1990; Therborn, 2003; Smith, 2017, pp. 189–90). An accelera-
tion toward global unity has been exaggerated, they claim. Despite monumental and rapid
change, longstanding religious, political, and cultural groups securely anchor indigenous
arrays of values, beliefs, and conventions. Civilizations are resilient and capable of mounting
a powerful defense against “flattening.” They endure in both overt and covert ways, these
researchers contend.
They hold that, although significant convergence seems apparent within regions, such as
Western Europe and northern America, deeply rooted distinctions are still clearly mani-
fest. This is evident, for example, when comparisons of the Middle East to China, Latin
America to the Far East, and China to Europe are undertaken. The radically different
features and pathways of these civilizations surely cannot be explained by reference alone
to changes in the economic, technological, and social media realms, they maintain (see
Smith, 2017, p. 190).
In addition, the critics insist that globalists often view human conduct as utilitarian, or
interest-based, thereby downplaying the influence of values, customs, and conventions. In-
deed, recent studies now attribute the unusual success of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Japan, South Korea, and China mainly to economic cultures imprinted deeply by religious
beliefs rather than to a wide application of new technologies or an efficient adaptation to
geopolitical and market interests (see Hamilton, 1996).
Acknowledging the complexity of civilizations, their incapacity to respond to social
change in a uniform and expedient manner is highlighted by some social scientists today.
Longstanding traditions and values inoculate civilizations against the steady flow of homog-
enizing innovations and the electronic media’s penetrating drumbeat, they argue. Perhaps
civilizations endowed with firm indigenous values and unique boundaries do still span the
globe and do erect obstacles against technology’s uniform effects.
Opponents of the globalization thesis further claim that portraits of distant lands and
peoples are, grounded in convergence presuppositions, seldom adequately coherent. Here-
tofore unfamiliar ways of life now become visible through electronic means, yet often they
appear in forms only partially comprehensible. Media reports regularly identify distant, yet
puzzling, events. Faraway folkways and customs frequently remain mysterious.
These critics of the “world society” vision view civilizations as unique – and in nu-
merous ways. Their distinct aspects are deeply embedded, they contend, rather than man-
ifestations alone of the uneven expansion of technology, electronic communications, and
international commerce. Age-old constellations of groups endure and remain viable; civ-
ilizations that maintain boundaries and pursue singular trajectories are still visible. These
opponents perceive all homogenization hypotheses as highly contingent and call for a
comprehension of civilizations as firmly constituted from longstanding values, beliefs, and
traditions.
Introduction 3
In this manner, critics of the “world culture” and “world economy” perspective intensely
dispute the impact of the Digital Age. The broad “interconnectedness” and “unity” empha-
sized by globalization theorists may prove fragile and fleeting, they contend. A particular
“structure of consciousness” is implied by each civilization and the internal composition of
these complex entities leads invariably to diverse outcomes (Nelson, 1981). Multiple con-
flicts, both within and across civilizations, can be expected, they argue.
These themes stand at the core of queries explored throughout this volume. Have here-
tofore unique civilizations become “leveled out” and “alike” over the last century? Are
civilizations losing their values-based and traditions-based identities amid wide-ranging
diffusion processes? Do distinct civilizations still exist in the Global Age characterized by
the rapid expansion of markets, technology, and all-encompassing modes of communica-
tion? Or have indigenous constellations of groups successfully erected barriers against mas-
sive external – even electronic – intrusions? If so, on what foundations? Is reference to
civilizations useful in social science research today? Or does a different conclusion now hold:
civilizations existed only in past epochs – for example, in classical Greece, imperial China,
and ancient Rome? Perhaps all attempts to connect civilizations internally today to their
singular histories are destined to fail owing to global convergence mechanisms.
Lacking today are social science research strategies capable of responding to these
questions – namely, a comparative methodology endowed with models and viable procedures.
A clear mode of analysis must be formed capable of identifying the sources and development
of a civilization. How can the capacity of some civilizations to endure despite encompassing
threats be evaluated? What makes some civilizations more resilient than others? Despite
their objections directed against globalists, the critics have been unable to form a powerful
mode of civilizational analysis. A rigorous methodology will offer strong research strategies
empowered to investigate civilizations on a broad scale. Answers to these queries require
guidance from the outset. Unfortunately, few social scientists can today be called sociolo-
gists of civilizations.
Toward a rigorous mode of civilizational analysis
The formation of a systematic and empirically grounded sociology of civilizations is urgent. Our
progressively smaller world and the growing intensity of cross-civilizational interactions
demand an immediate turn toward this field.
However, recent comparative-historical researchers seldom recognize the full complex-
ity, uniqueness, and multi-dimensionality of each civilization and rarely utilize clear modes
of procedure. Adequate theoretical frameworks and causal methodologies are infrequently
formulated. Many scholars focus heavily on the causal roles of economic interests; oth-
ers place political and geopolitical issues at the forefront. Largely neglected are the many
ways groups become embedded in diverse religious and other values-based configurations
of groups in different civilizations. Analyses are too rarely undertaken of the ways tradi-
tions and values – whether religion-based or secular – endure and play causal roles across
centuries.
Furthermore, research designs are frequently poorly constructed, both those that map the
manner in which multiple causes call forth groups and those that seek to explain how groups
follow patterns. The recognition of conjunctural – or dynamic – interactions of multiple
causal variables is rare and a clear locating of groups in reference to long-term, indigenous
4 Introduction
developments is often absent. Unknowingly, many researchers proceed on the basis of pre-
sentist assumptions. A distinctly modern “individual” highly motivated by goal-oriented
action stands at the foundation of almost all comparative-historical research today.
In addition, heuristic concepts capable of assisting conceptualization are seldom utilized.
Systematic model-building is largely omitted, as is a rigorous, concepts-based methodology
oriented to the explanation of empirical cases. Constructs that conceptualize likelihoods
regarding causal lines must be formulated, as well as models that evaluate probabilities in
regard to development directions.
Finally, too often comparative-historical research remains rooted in America-centric
and Europe-centric premises. Owing to nation-specific provincialism, cross-civilizational
misperceptions and misunderstandings are widespread; efforts to comprehend the activities
of persons in groups by reference to their meaningfulness are too often absent. Conse-
quently, many procedures commonly applied are fundamentally too narrow in scope to
capture the complexity of civilizations. Hypotheses frequently yield surface-level conclu-
sions only; partial pictures are frequently painted. Rigorous studies of civilizations remain
rare today despite the intensity of public debates on their features and modes of interaction.
Among social scientists, a broader cognizance of civilizations as complex entities must
acquire acceptance. They must be viewed as comprising various groups perpetually engaged
in both coalitions and conflicts. The systematic utilization of models is also indispensable, as
is a recognition of the powerful influence of the past upon the present. A large gap exists
between the goal of discovering the multiple causes behind a civilization’s substantive con-
tours and singular direction of development on the one hand and the heuristic instruments
available to do so on the other hand. The analysis of intra- and inter-civilizational tensions
requires more powerful constructs, modes of analysis, and research strategies, as does the
isolation of causes behind the diverging reactions of civilizations to globalization. The im-
portance of a refined mode of analysis must be recognized.
Surely, the dominant tenor of macro research today – the weakness of theory, the growth
of extreme specialization, the narrowing of themes, the drift toward homogenization pre-
suppositions, and the absence of strong mechanisms that link delimited social problems to
the main contours of civilizations – places many obstacles against investigators who com-
prehend civilizations as unique and extremely complex. Enormous puzzles surrounding
their origins, major contours, and trajectories remain to be addressed. A rigorous approach
to the study of civilizations must be formulated, one that offers broad-ranging guidance to
researchers. The vacuum today has created unusual opportunities for new generations of
social scientists.
A field of studies must chart research strategies. The ways in which a broad range of causes
stand behind the formation and expansion of multiple groups must be defined clearly, as well
as mechanisms to identify causes. Varieties of models and theoretical frameworks must be
also formed. Instructions regarding their application can be offered.
In the wake of this continuing debate, some critics of the globalization-oriented econ-
omists and sociologists have sought to revive the works of Benjamin Nelson (1911–1977).
This prominent Weberian emphasized distinct “structures of consciousness” and singular
“rationales” in different civilizations and epochs (1981). Other opponents point to the legacy
of Reinhard Bendix (1916–1991), a comparative-historical sociologist who analyzed in great
detail the distinct routes into modernity taken by France, the United States, China, Russia,
Japan, and Germany (see 1996, 1978). The homogenization thesis, when viewed against
Introduction 5
the unique pathways of these nations, offers only surface-level insights. Still others have
called attention to the “multiple modernity” thesis of S.N. Eisenstadt (1923–2010). To him,
modernity assumes a variety of manifestations and the reactions by civilizations to global-
ization pressures occurs in pluralist ways. Further attempts toward the formulation of a new
“civilizations” paradigm, often inspired by the works of Eisenstadt, have been offered in
recent years (see Arnason, 2003; Arjomand and Tiryakian, 2004; Katzenstein, 2010, 2017;
Arjomand, 2011; Spohn, 2011; Smith, 2017). All have contributed to the recently founded
“civilizational analysis” school.
This volume argues that the works of Max Weber (1864–1920) can offer indispensable
and wide-ranging guidance to sociologists of civilizations today. Unfortunately, he never
presented the substance and boundaries of his civilizational research in a clear and systematic
manner. A close, careful, and diagonal reading of his texts is necessary. All chapters serve
a common purpose: to present his diffuse writings in ways that reveal a multi-dimensional
Weberian sociology of civilizations. Indeed, this volume seeks to reconstruct the coherent mode
of analysis concealed within his major works. The enduring analytic strength and usefulness
of Weberian procedures and strategies for the study of civilizations can be conveyed only in this
manner.
Let us first “locate” Weber by briefly examining those well-known aspects of his works
commonly emphasized by his commentators. An overview of this study’s chapters will
subsequently introduce the many tasks to be undertaken by this reconstruction. It erects a
Weberian sociology of civilizations step-by-step.1
A firm foundation: reconstructing Max Weber
Weber is well known as a theorist of the bureaucracy and of modern “bureaucratization”
processes, and as a sociologist who provided superior definitions in his three-volume opus,
Economy and Society (E&S), of a wide array of concepts central for sociological analysis.
Many of his formulations are still utilized widely and his contribution to the intellectual
capital of sociology remains unrivaled. Every sociologist around the globe is acquainted
with Weber’s E&S definitions of, for example, status groups, rulership (Herrschaft), charisma,
power, authority, the nation, the state, and the bureaucracy. Unsurprisingly, many social
scientists today view Weber mainly as an unusually gifted taxonomist.
The definition of “objectivity” prominent in social science research also stems from We-
ber’s pen (see “Obj,” pp. 100–138), as does a widely used research tool: the “ideal type” (see
“Obj,” pp. 124–37). His methodology of “interpretive understanding” (verstehen), which
seeks to capture the varying subjective meanings of “social action,” is also broadly influential,
as are his “four types of social action” (see E&S, pp. 20–26). Micro-sociological research in
particular has embraced the latter concepts.
Weber is also widely recognized today for his “Protestant ethic thesis.” Interpreters have
often taken his famous volume, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (PE), as the
core of his works. Against a series of opponents, he insisted in this study that the devel-
opment of modern capitalism in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries2 re-
sulted not only from heroic “adventure” capitalists in pursuit of their material interests in
a utilitarian manner, or from new technologies, power considerations, class domination,
population growth, and the discovery in the New World of precious metals, but also from
constellations of values: a “Protestant ethic” and a “spirit” of capitalism. Both must be
6 Introduction
located in cultural developments outside the political and economy realms, Weber insists.
Ascetic Puritans in seventeenth-century England and Colonial America linked hard work,
profit, and the accumulation of wealth and its investment to the question of central urgency
to them: “Am I among the saved?”
Intensely debated since its original publication in 1904 and 1905, the “Weber thesis” an-
chored an approach to the study of economic modernization for a full century. It endowed
religious values with causal significance.3 We can see today that it stands as Weber’s earliest
attempt to define modern capitalism’s particularity and to offer an explanation for its birth
and wide expansion in the West.4
His research program expanded significantly in scope after PE. Convinced that a nation’s
singularity could be demarcated only after wide-ranging comparisons, he embarked upon
a radically comparative agenda. Weber’s massive multi-volumes Economic Ethics of the
World Religions (EEWR) on China (RofC), India (RofI), and ancient Judaism (AJ) throw
into relief the uniqueness of the ancient, medieval, and modern West, as well as the multiple
causes behind the West’s development. Innumerable sections are also highly comparative.
Remarkably, they were seldom examined even by those scholars deeply interested in the
Protestant ethic thesis. In addition to numerous discussions of ideas and values, they include
broad-ranging investigations of “the other side of the causal equation”: the political and eco-
nomic interests in the West that assisted modern capitalism’s unfolding (see PE, pp. 178–79;
Kalberg, 2021).
This investigation maintains that Weber’s post-PE comparative, multi-causal, and
context- based methodology remains relevant to researchers oriented to the rise and devel-
opment of modern capitalism in the West. However, and although a pivotal segment of this
study is dedicated to a reconstruction of his complex analysis, we see today that an even
broader yield flows from PE, E&S, and EEWR, as well as from Weber’s General Economic
History volume (GEH). In the process of defining and explaining the West’s singular origins,
contours, and trajectory, he created – although never succinctly formulated – a particular
mode of analysis for the study of civilizations.
Unfortunately, the enormous commentary on Weber’s works has never systematically
addressed his research strategies and procedures.5 Thus, his multi-dimensional mode of
analysis must be extrapolated from his vast comparative-historical writings and rendered
accessible – even to the reader unfamiliar with his major essays and treatises. Only a rigorous
reconstruction will make manifest their full contribution. Only then will the usefulness of
his procedures and strategies become evident. The remainder of this Introduction offers a
summary of this volume’s major tasks and themes. This study seeks to reconstruct Weber’s
sociology of civilizations.
The formation of models, or “ideal types,” is central to his mode of analysis (see Chapter 2).6
The definitions they articulate are built upon empirical research and, in turn, facilitate
empirical research: they provide guidance and hypotheses for the researcher. Each construct
assists orientation to relevant sectors of the unending flow of “happenings and occurrences”
that continuously surround us (“VF,” p. 315). Although known to researchers across the
globe, as noted, many sociologists in the United States today see Weber as a highly skilled
taxonomist – and little more.
This view of his scholarship must be cast aside. There would have been little reason
to research and write the volumes on China, India, and ancient Judaism had he taken
the formation of concepts as his major task. These studies provide evidence of Weber’s
Introduction 7
sweeping parameters: he seeks not only to isolate the uniqueness of the West and to unveil
the many causes behind its singular pathway of development, but also to comprehend how
certain regularities of conduct became meaningful in multiple civilizations. How do persons
near and distant formulate and maintain patterns of subjective meaning? Weber wished to
understand the formation and contours of a civilization’s “particular rationalism” (“PR,”
pp. 245–46). Each cultivated indigenous and cohesive regularities of conduct – including
ones oriented to values, emotions, interests, and traditions, he held. Weber’s writings closely
examine the origins, contours, and trajectories of ancient Chinese rationalism, ancient and
medieval Indian rationalism, the rationalism of ancient Israel, ancient Western rationalism,
medieval Western rationalism, and modern Western rationalism.
How, he queried, do civilizations arise and endure? How does a civilization’s particular
rationalism follow a specific “track” of development? How does the past of each civilization
influence its present? And, not least, how do certain groups form and then formulate pat-
terns of subjective meaning that become widely upheld?
These well-known components of Weber’s sociology undoubtedly acquaint social sci-
entists today with important segments of his writings. They fail, however, to convey ad-
equately his extraordinary comparative range and the rigor of his comparative- historical
sociology. The orthodox portrayal of its yield – often referred to as Weber’s “view of
history” – also downplays the unusual complexity, empirical rootedness, and analytic
power of his project.
These interpreters maintain that his works depict on the one hand an overarching al-
ternation in history between charismatic, revolutionary leaders and the stable powers of
everyday tradition and custom in earlier epochs and the bureaucratic form of organization
in industrializing and industrialized societies on the other hand (see Salomon, 1935; Mom-
msen, 1989, pp. 53–73, 109–20). This latter conflict continues, the commentators contend,
until the “irresistible expansion” of bureaucracies in industrial societies eventually circum-
scribes and tames charismatic figures, as well as all viable civic activity (see Salomon, 1934;
Parsons, 1963).
Others have sought to characterize Weber’s “vision of history” as oriented to a West-
ern “disenchantment of the world” (see Scaff, 1989). According to this interpretation, the
“objective” and empirical procedures of modern science stand in opposition to the “leap of
faith” required of believers by all salvation religions – and thus cast all faith in the supernat-
ural into the realm of the “irrational.”
The diffuse formulations prominent in all of these commentaries generally fail to cor-
respond to the rigorously empirical and complex research strategies found in Weber’s PE,
his EEWR volumes on China, India, and ancient Israel, GEH, The Agrarian Conditions of
Ancient Civilizations (AG), and the analytic orientation found in E&S7 (see Kalberg, 1994,
pp. 81–191). Hence, they contribute little to his mode of analysis and his sociology of civi-
lizations. These interpreters neglect his contextual-causal methodology, expansive model-
building, manner of linking the present to the past, analytic scope, and attention to the
subjective meaning of social action.
Weber must in part accept responsibility. His interpretive understanding approach, which
is oriented to an exploration of the subjective meaning of persons in groups far and wide, re-
mains often concealed. In addition, he conveys infrequently the complex methodology and
epoch-transcending themes that dominate his empirical studies. Indeed, Weber’s research
strategies often appear inconsistent; his works unceasingly interweave seemingly unrelated
8 Introduction
procedures and themes. Furthermore, each major investigation evidences serious deficien-
cies if scrutinized from the perspective of its capacity to form a sociology of civilizations.
One searches his comparative-historical writings in vain for a clear statement of their central
orientations, overarching goals, and pivotal methodological axioms.
The obscurity of many of Weber’s presuppositions has frequently led commentators astray.
He charted alliances throughout history of far-flung groups, yet opposed organic holism and
viewed conflict as omnipresent. He never portrayed civilizations as following “general laws”
or as unfolding along linear and lawful lines;8 rather, Weber stood vehemently against evo-
lutionary premises and approaches that discovered invariable processes. He also contested all
schools that proclaimed as inevitable either a “decline of Western civilization” (see Spengler,
2017) or “rise and fall cycles” throughout history (see Toynbee, 1945).
Weber’s comparative-historical writings on civilizations also reject unequivocally all
modes of investigation that seek to write history in the manner advocated by the mid-
nineteenth-century historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886): “as it actually occurred.”
Such attempts were destined to fail, Weber insists (see “Obj”). Moreover, the multi-causal
methodology of EEWR, E&S, and GEH lends credence neither to Hegel’s contention that
a civilization’s development is governed by overarching ideas nor to the pivotal Marxian
postulate: material forces and class conflict stand ultimately at the foundation of all social
change. As a distinguished scholar has noted, any search for history’s “master-key formula”
remains fundamentally anathema to Weber (see Roth, 1968, p. xxix).
Commentators searching for guidance from his texts for a sociology of civilizations have
been disappointed, not least owing to his stress upon the varying subjective motivations of
actors and the wide pluralism of development pathways. And his orientation to a multiplic-
ity of causes behind all regular action endures throughout his oeuvre, as does an emphasis
upon the situating of patterned action – if to possess an impact – in facilitating deep contexts
of further regular action.9 Furthermore, as noted, Weber stresses repeatedly the multiple
linkages – often in paradoxical ways – between the past and the present.
To him, the “life-spheres” (Lebenssphäre, Lebensbereiche, Lebensordnungen) he identifies as
central in every civilization – the religion, law, economy, rulership, social honor (status), and
“universal organizations” (the family and the clan) arenas10 – seldom develop empirically in
parallel (see PE, pp. 97–98). They fall instead into varieties of relationships, interweaving
in some epochs closely and in other eras separating out and following “autonomous” path-
ways. A fusion of several domain-specific patterns of action into equilibrium- maintaining
coalitions, unambiguous development routes, and an organic “society” may occur; how-
ever, fissions, reversals, tensions, and severe conflict are also possible. Circumstances across
civilizations vary widely, he pronounces, and diverse outcomes are likely. Unforeseen con-
sequences occur frequently in past, present, and past–present relationships. Despite many
ambiguities, Weber’s works decidedly – when reconstructed – manifest a rigorous sociology of
civilizations.
He stood at the end of a long line of distinguished German scholars who undertook
“universal-historical” (universalgeschichtliche) investigations.11 His predecessors convinced
Weber that, as discussed, the uniqueness of any particular civilization can be ascertained
only through comparisons. His extraordinarily broad agenda expressed this position: his
empirical research spanned China, India, and all of the major civilizations of the Middle
East (see AJ and AG). With full sovereignty it traversed across each century of the West’s
2,600-year development.
Introduction 9
He explored, for example, in detailed studies the origin, message, and influence of the
Old Testament prophets; the differences between ancient Christianity and Pharisaical Ju-
daism; the major features of the “village economy,” the examination system, and clan as-
sociations in China; the distinctions between caste and tribe in India and the absence in
this civilization of Natural law; the expansion of Buddhism throughout southeast Asia;
the notion of citizenship in the cities of the Western Middle Ages; the salvation doctrines
and economic ethics of ancient Judaism, early Christianity, Islam, medieval Catholicism,
Lutheranism, and ascetic Protestantism; the position of peasants in various Western coun-
tries before the arrival of modern capitalism; the development of commerce, mercantilism,
banking, and forms of transportation in the West; the economic foundations of imperialism;
the social origins of the stock market; the possibilities for democracy in Russia; the rise of
the caste system in India, Confucianism in China, and monotheism in ancient Israel (see
Kalberg, 2012, pp. 145–92); and the character of sultanism in the Middle East and feudalism
in Japan, China, India, and the West. An intense focus upon empirical contexts character-
izes all of Weber’s wide-ranging investigations.
These studies, and many more, demonstrate an unequalled breadth. Cognizance of their
extraordinary agenda should have pushed commentators long ago toward the unique so-
ciology of civilizations buried within Weber’s comparative-historical texts. Regrettably, his
diverse investigations have been examined largely in isolation rather than as a series of
cohesive building blocks. Even scholars well acquainted with his volumes on China, India,
and ancient Israel, as well as his E&S chapters on the ancient and medieval West, have gen-
erally focused their comments exclusively on delimited – even minor – themes within these
treatises. However, another foundational component of Weber’s oeuvre directs us forcefully
toward his sociology of civilizations.
Despite their seeming randomness, his multiple investigations must be comprehended as
integral elements in a sweeping landscape, indeed one that bestowed a degree of internal
unity upon his wide-ranging research: throughout his comparative oeuvre, Weber sought
to define the uniqueness of the West in precise terms. This overarching theme merged
with three further themes of equally broad range: (a) he attempted, through comparisons
to China, India, and ancient Israel, to isolate the multiple causes at the source of the West’s
particular development pathway; (b) he sought, through yet further comparative research,
to identify the additional multiple causes that sustained the West’s singular contours over
millennia; and (c) he attempted to demarcate the trajectory of the West’s development.
This overriding theme – the causes behind the West’s particular formation, its unique-
ness, and its pathway over the course of a long development to the present – must be linked to
major features of Weber’s research methodology, above all on the one hand to its highly em-
pirical and comparative procedures and on the other hand to its systematic model- building.
By connecting these pivotal aspects of his sociology, the reconstruction undertaken here
renders overt relationships that have been neglected by interpreters over the last century.
A systematic mode of analysis
The major themes and mode of analysis of Weber’s sociology of civilizations must be com-
prehended as forming a unity. Based on a close reading of his empirical investigations and a
highlighting of the methodology and themes that organize these works, this reconstruction
seeks to convey his systematic approach to the study of civilizations.
10 Introduction
Weber’s orientation to firm linkages between the past and the present will be evident,
as will his context-based and multi-causal procedures, his model-based mode of concep-
tualization rooted in ideal types and societal domains, and his tools for understanding the
subjective meaning of people in groups. His fine-grained concepts and rigorous research
strategies capture the singularity and complexity of civilizations – and also the directions
of their development paths. In addition, his mode of analysis identifies both the sources of
the tensions that arise within and across civilizations and the origins of broad coalitions of
groups.
Hence, Weber wishes not only to analyze how civilizations originate and develop along
identifiable tracks. He aims also to offer explanations for how, in light of diverse trajecto-
ries, both conflicts and alliances across groups may congeal and may unfold with continuity
across centuries. Indeed, his methodology provides coherent guidelines of great usefulness to
social scientists engaged today in research into the origins, contours, and development paths
of specific civilizations.
In sum, Weber offers an empirically based, model-based, and multi-causal sociology of
civilizations that defines the internal dynamics of civilizations and the ways in which they
remain the same or change. Rejecting as amorphous the broad dichotomies – Gemeinschaft/
Gesellschaft, feudalism/capitalism, rural/urban, monarchy/democracy, and religion/ secular –
common in his time, he argues that civilizations can be investigated on the basis of delim-
ited questions on the one hand and empirically grounded concepts and research strategies
on the other hand.
Weber’s four “types of social action” and four “types of rationality” play central roles, as
does a broad-ranging heuristic framework (see Chapters 2–8). A full recognition of power
is also pivotal, as are indigenous patterns of empirical action and the ways in which legacies
from the past, if carried by strong groups, regularly influence the present. The manner in
which for him subjectively meaningful patterns of action held in common repeatedly call
people together into groups also captures our attention. His focus on the constellations of
regular action oriented to values and traditions that form background contexts for interest-
based conflicts and alliances will be evident, as will his orientation to the interest-based
conflicts and alliances that form background contexts for actions oriented to values and
traditions.
It must be emphasized, as addressed, that Weber’s mode of analysis is oriented to an
identification of the uniqueness of different civilizations and the singularity of their historical
development. To him, each possesses a “characteristic individuality” and is constituted from
arrays of groups that carry “meaning complexes.” Thus, although a specific question – “why
did modern capitalism develop earliest in the West and not in Asia?” – assumes urgency in
Weber’s writings, the origins, contours, and trajectory of each major civilization’s “particu-
lar rationalism” did so as well.12 In the process of undertaking wide-ranging investigations
designed to isolate and causally explain the major features of the developing West, he cre-
ated a sociology of civilizations that avoided all diffuse “East” vs. “West” contrasts, as well as
all “general evolution” presuppositions. Here his works must be acknowledged as breaking
decisively from those of his contemporaries. This volume will demonstrate the analytic
range, methodological rigor, and applicability of a Weberian sociology of civilizations.
Weber’s mode of analysis offers guidelines that aim to expand the researcher’s compre-
hension of how civilizations are formed as unique entities, how they are distinguished from
each other, and why they develop along specific pathways. In this way it seeks to contribute