Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures

Author/Contributor(s): Weber, Max; Searls, Damion; Reitter, Paul; Wellmon, Chad Publisher: NYRB Classics Date: 02/04/2020 Binding: Paperback Condition: NEW A new translation of two celebrated lectures on politics, academia, and the disenchantment of the world. The German sociologist Max Weber is one of the most venturesome, stimulating, and influential theorists of the modern condition. Among his most significant works are the so-called vocation lectures, published shortly after the end of World War I and delivered at the invitation of a group of student activists. The question the students asked Weber to address was simple and haunting: In a modern world characterized by the division of labor, economic expansion, and unrelenting change, was it still possible to consider an academic or political career as a genuine calling? In response Weber offered his famous diagnosis of “the disenchantment of the world,” along with a challenging account of the place of morality in the