"Wrong's book includes a long Introduction (76 pages, about a third of the volume) and eleven essays by well-known students of Weber, i.e., Raymond Aron, Talcott Parsons, Benjamin Nelson, Karl Lowith, Herbert Luethy, Carlo Antoni, Reinhard Bendix, Wolfgang Mommsen, Guenther Roth, and Peter Blau (two essays). There is a short selected bibliography and a brief biographical sketch of each contributor. The book suffers from the lack of an index. Since the selections have been previously published, the originality of the book consists primarily in Wrong's introductory essay and in his selection of articles. "For much of his life he was no more than a private scholar suffering from a paralyzing neurosis. His political aspirations were never realized. His massive work remains highly incomplete. He died before he was sixty. Yet so profound and penetrating was the work of Max Weber that, in the editor's words, he truly "deserves to be called the last universal genius of the social sciences". In this volume, such noted authorities as Peter M. Blau, Talcott Parsons, Wolfgang Mommsen, Karl Loewith and many others reveal the full impact of Weber's thought on modern social science. Editor Dennis H. Wrong, in a comprehensive introduction, examines Weber himself, his sociological method, and the extent of his influence, while other leading scholars comment on more specific aspects of his work --including the sociology of religion and his philosophy of history. Varied and penetrating, the selections in this book offer a complete portrait of the genius whose seminal insights set the stage for current sociological research and theory"--back cover.