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Rating: 
Summary: Crucial
Review: Central to the development of sociology. For readers interested in the great sociologists of the 19th century, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, this is a key read. Start with THE PROTESTANT ETHIC by Weber, but ECONOMY AND SOCIETY is a rich and brilliant elaboration of Weber's central themes.It's dry, but it's great thinking, and very important.
Rating: 
Summary: comment of a comment made four years ago
Review: I expect this comment is going to be useful, if at all, only to first year graduate students, so it'll be understandable if it's not rated very highly.... Anyway, just a quick note on Mr. Jack White's comment of April 11, 2000. One thing that Max Weber's Economy and Society is NOT, is a foundational text for structural-functionalism. That honor would probably go to Emile Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society-- to be followed oh-so many years later by seminal works of Americans Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton. I'm not sure what Mr. White was thinking, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about classical sociological theory.
Rating:
Summary: What??
Review: I'm a little confused. I purchased this book because of it's comprehensiveness (1400+ pages of work by Weber), but when the book arrived, it was only about 700 pages long. Am I missing something here? If I paid $20 for a used 1400 page copy and receive a 700 page book, should I only be charged $10? Strange.
Rating:
Summary: What??
Review: I'm a little confused. I purchased this book because of it's comprehensiveness (1400+ pages of work by Weber), but when the book arrived, it was only about 700 pages long. Am I missing something here? If I paid $20 for a used 1400 page copy and receive a 700 page book, should I only be charged $10? Strange.
Rating:
Summary: ES and Schluchter's developmental history
Review: It seems that many people comment this book with the difficulty to read and the bad organization. However, I want to suggest that after read Schluchter's 'The Rise of Western Rationalism', you will know more about why Weber's writings are in this style. Simply speaking, it links to Weber's view of History, and if he want to elaborate the history in a approiate way, not a simple linear evolutionary way, he had to demonstrate the whole picture--or in Schluchter's word, 'basic configuration'--of history. History, in this case the rise of Rationalism, is not compose solely by few influential events, but also related to the others. Those 'significant historical events' are only the consequence of the competition between ideas and historical events, therefore, Weber wanted to explain why the configuration favour the rise of western rationalism, so he must concern all elements constitute the history. That is, Weber showed us the conditions and the process of competition within or among the many spheres, I think that is why Weber had to use this seems fragmented writing style.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Top Ten social science books of all time!
Review: Weber's Economy and Society was the number one pick by sociologists at the World Congress of Sociology. Twenty percent chose the book as one of the top ten. No other book had as high a percentage of admirers. Many key concepts come from this encyclopedic work: Modern Capitalism, modern bureaucracy, charismatic authority, and goal-rational social action. The overall thesis of this complex magnum opus concerns the de-mystification and rationalization of our world, the famous iron cage thesis. One neglected aspect is Weber's ideal type model of patrimonial prebendal traditional authority and its oscillation with feudal authority. Feudalism promoted capitalism and capitalism has a tendency to become an iron cage of instrumental rationality. The main difficulty with the book is the casuistic writing style; it is not a book to sit down and read, but more like a reference work. Before accepting trendy PoMo discourses take a good look at this in depth examination of one key aspect of globalization. (This two volume set supplants previous partial translations of portions of the book, e.g. Parsons' translation of one part, and the editing work is in the highest scholarly tradition.) Everyone interested in social science should study this book! It is an exemplar for comparative historical analysis in sociology (CHS) that is neither naively Positivistic nor dogmatically Marxist.
Rating:
Summary: Economy and Society
Review: What can I say of this work that has not already been said. This is the core of Structural Functionalism. It is presented as an argument against Karl Marx's Capital and his 1844 Manuscripts. Weber argues that the economic sphere is not the only factor in determining social structure. While Marx divides society into owners and workers, Weber presents society as composed of several layers of classes and status groups.
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