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Religion and the rise of capitalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John A. Hall
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Extract

Max Weber's Problemattk still retains its power: why did only Christian Europe amongst the world civilisations autonomously create an economic dynamism, broadly capitalist in character? This essay gives an answer to this question, but it is one, for the most part, not in the spirit of the great German sociologist. There is, of course, a major academic industry devoted to the interpretation of Weber's work, but it still remains safe to say that Weber's own explanation for the fortuitous rise of the West had to do with ideological options concerning rational economic behaviour which gained particular salience in the fifteenth century despite having been present in embryo for a much longer period.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , November 1985 , pp. 193 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1985

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