Book Review: Extended Review: Max Weber: A Biography

Abstract

For Rüdiger Safranski, philosopher, writer and biographer, interest in writing a biography is kindled if the life and work of the intellectual or artist concerned seems to provide the ground for 'working through' problems. Thus E. T. A. Hoffmann's way of creating a proper space for literature whilst acknowledging the 'fate of his time' (under the hegemony of Napoleon I) as political through and through struck a deep chord with Safranski's own search in the tumultuous 1970s. Reading Joachim Radkau's Max Weber, makes one wonder, however, whether the chord belongs to the subject or to the biographer. Facing the daunting task of putting together the first complete account of Weber's life since Marianne Weber's achievement, almost 80 years before, Radkau, a historian of the environment, and author of The Age of Nervousness (Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler, 1988), found (to his visible relief) in 'nature' the missing link between Weber's life and work (Radkau, 2008: 132). A 'substratum' of naturalism underpins Weber's theoretical and empirical work, although largely unacknowledged by Weber himself, such is Radkau's thesis. Nature, as the node of Weber's life and work: was that the 'problem' to 'work through'? Or does the 'missing link' turn out to be a steel casing for Weber's spirit?Such are the questions raised for the reader by Joachim Radkau's biography of Max Weber, published in German in 2005 and now available (abridged from the 1008 pages of the German edition) for the English speaking public. The very structure of the book reflects Radkau's starting hypothesis: system-