Max Weber: A Biography

"No serious sociologist can be without a copy of this heavy tome. Artfully translated by Patrick Camiller, the study is hypnotic reading, beautifully written, lively, stimulating, and wonderfully well organized. No review could do justice to the plethora of new insights into Weber that emerge in this study, which will keep specialists happy in controversy for years to come."
Canadian Journal of Sociology

"Radkau has provided a comprehensive, authoritative, balanced and nuanced view of the man we have come to know as the conflicted, driven, enigmatic genius of 10th-century modernity."
Sociology

"This absorbing and meticulously researched biography ... recounts a complex, moving story."
Book of the week in the Times Higher Education

"Radkau's exceptional book brings out the relations between Weber's thought and his life experience. There are sensational revelations about Weber's suffering and eroticism, his fears and desires, and his great creative power."
Lancashire Evening Post

"The reader is in for an exciting time, but also an agreeable one, since Radkau has an easy, relaxed style, and has been fluently and serviceably translated."
Times Literary Supplement

"Radkau's biography takes great advantage of the archive documentation and of the family correspondence made available by Guenther Roth's enormous 2001 effort."
The Philosophers' Magazine

"Joachim Radkau is the first biographer to bring the great social thinker Max Weber to life. He reveals what others tried to conceal: the emotional turmoil suffered by the champion of rationality."
Lord Dahrendorf

"In this remarkable and engaging study, Joachim Radkau investigates the life, loves, and intellectual passions of one of the early twentieth century’s most engaging thinkers. Capturing both the tumultuous times and the singular accomplishments of Max Weber, the author has written a spirited and penetrating account of the creative life that is perhaps unrivaled in its provocative originality. Based on impeccable documentation, the result is a striking portrait of the eros of the intellect, of scientific work in relation to personality. Radkau's impressive achievement is certain to provoke a passionate response of its own."
Lawrence A. Scaff, Wayne State University

"A minor social-scientific scoop ... By any standards, this is an important work."
Peter Thomas, New Left Review

"Despite the immense Weber industry, until now we had no biographical account of this quality."
Hans Joas, Merkur

"An amazing, breath-taking book."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"A brilliant achievement."
Süddeutsche Zeitung

"I read every sentence of Radkau’s Weber ... A must-read."
Michael Greven, Neue Politische Literatur