ABSTRACT
Eduard Meyer and Max Weber, younger by nine years, belonged to a generation that took their orientation from history and expected to find it within the historical sciences (Geschichtswissenschaft). Meyer gave expression to this need, one that was shared with Weber, when he acknowledged that the striving for a unified and historically anchored view of the world had been his innermost driving force in taking up his profession. 1 Having grown up in the same educational world, they both entered the academic profession of historian. However, while Eduard Meyer, carefully prepared by schooling as well as disposition, immediately turned to universal history, 2 causing a sensation at the age of twenty-nine with his Geschichte des Altertums, Max Weber began his studies with legal, economic and social history, and the universal historical direction of his work only revealed itself at the end of his life.
