ABSTRACT
It can hardly be doubted that The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (hereafter The Protestant Ethic) is the central reference point for reflexive historical sociology and of much of sociology tout court. Already at the time of their first publication in 1904-5, the significance of the two essays was recognized and the work has been held in the highest regard ever since. This was reconfirmed, for those who needed it, by the recent survey of the International Sociological Association members who voted it the fourth most influential sociological book of the century.
