Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book is a collaboration focused on Max Weber.More info: Maximilian Carl Emil "Max" Weber (; 21 April 1864 - 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist and political economist, who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself. Weber's major works dealt with the rationalization and "disenchantment" he associated with the rise of capitalism and modernity. Weber was, along with his associate Georg Simmel, a central figure in the establishment of methodological antipositivism; presenting sociology as a non-empirical field which must study social action through resolutely subjective means. He is typically cited, with Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science, and has variously been described as the most important classic thinker in the social sciences.