Max Weber

Max Weber was a German sociologist, jurist and political economist widely regarded as a founder of modern sociology. Trained in law and economic history in Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg, he held chairs at Freiburg and Heidelberg before a prolonged illness turned him toward independent scholarship. His writings addressed the sociology of religion, authority, bureaucracy and the methodology of the social sciences, introducing concepts such as the ideal type, rationalization, charisma and the distinction between value and fact. His best-known study examined links between Protestant asceticism and the development of capitalism. He engaged in German politics after the First World War and taught at Vienna and Munich, where he died in 1920.