Max Weber

Max Weber was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, one of the central figures in the development of sociology. Born in Erfurt in 1864, he taught in Berlin, Freiburg and Heidelberg, and in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism argued that the Protestant work ethic influenced the creation of modern capitalism. He defined states by their monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given area and divided social authority into charismatic, traditional and rational-legal forms. After the First World War he co-founded the German Democratic Party and advised the drafting of the Weimar Constitution; he died in 1920, leaving Economy and Society unfinished.