Weber, Passion and Profits

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
Review of the hardback: 'Jack Barbalet's reading of Max Weber's sociology of religious asceticism extracts a new richness from these classical texts and restores to modern sociology a discourse – passion, virtue and calling – which we have unfortunately lost. More than simply an interpretation of Weber's work on the Protestant sects, Barbalet situates his appreciation of Weber within the broader context of theories of the market, the missing work on Roman Catholicism and anti-Semitism. Weber, Passions and Profits, building on his earlier work on emotions, is not only a work of immense scholarship but also a work of passion.' Bryan S. Turner, Editor of the Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (2006)