ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews briefly Max Weber’s influence on several centrally important fields of study within sociology. In Weber’s case, much of the voluminous recent scholarship devoted to him has involved revisions and correction of earlier images, especially in English-speaking world. The Parsonian interpretation of Weber exaggerated the differences from Marx in many areas and sometimes tended to present Weber as a kind of anti-Marx. The present revival of broad comparative history which recognizes both Marx and Weber as ancestors is an interdisciplinary project involving both sociologists and historians who have overcome the traditional barriers that have long divided them. The study of formal or complex organizations is one of most highly developed areas of contemporary sociology in its integration of theory and research, but as recognized specialty it does not predate the 1950s. In short, political sociology, like formal organizations and social stratification, began to emerge as a specialty not long after publication of first translations of Weber’s sociological writings.
