A Re-Assessment of the work of max weber (1864-1920) in its context - weber beware a founding father of sociowork In his first book to appear in English, Wilhelm Hennis argues that Weber's ideas have been distorted by both German- and English-speaking sociologists. In his view the 'Weber revival' of recent years has a textual basis that is narrow and partial, imputes modern concerns to Weber and treats the position of Weber as a 'founding father' of sociology as unproblematic. Ranging across the work of Weber and skilfully employing familiar, unfamiliar and previously unknown sources, Hennis brings to our understanding of Weber the arguments and methods of a scholar trained in law and familiar with a German tradition of political thought largely unknown to contemporary social scientists. He places Weber in a tradition of political thought that includes Rousseau, de Tocqueville and Nietzsche, a tradition that embraces contemplation of Man and human personality as well as a new discourse on modernity. Viewed in this light, Weber addresses modern cultural and political issues much more directly than he can as the sociological theorist of bureaucracy, social mobility and interpretative method. In addition to reissuing the text of the original translation, the Threshold Press edition includes a translation of Prof Hennis' autobiographical essay Politikwissenschaft als Beruf.