Joachim Radkau's Books

Max Weber

A Biography

By: Joachim Radkau

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Max Weber (1864-1920) is recognized throughout the world as the most important classic thinker in the social sciences – there is simply no one in the history of the social sciences who has been more influential. The affinity between capitalism and protestantism, the religious origins of the Western world, the force of charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of rationalization and the bureaucratic price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as offsprings of leadership, the ‘disenchantment’ of the modern world together with the never-ending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between intellectualism and eroticism: all these are key concepts which attest to the enduring fascination of Weber’s thinking. The tremendous influence exerted by Max Weber was due not only to the power of his ideas but also to the fact that behind his theories one perceived a man with a marked character and a tragic destiny. However, for nearly 80 years, our understanding of the life of Max Weber was dominated by the biography published in 1926 by his widow, Marianne Weber. The lack of a great Weber biography was one of the strangest and most glaring gaps in the literature of the social sciences. For various reasons the task was difficult; time and again, attempts to write a new biography of Max Weber ended in failure. When Joachim Radkau’s biography appeared in Germany in 2005 it caused a sensation. Based on an abundance of previously unknown sources and richly embedded in the German history of the time, this is the first fully comprehensive biography of Max Weber ever to appear. Radkau brings out, in a way that no one has ever done before, the intimate interrelations between Weber’s thought and his life experience. He presents detailed revelations about the great enigmas of Weber’s life: his suffering and erotic experiences, his fears and his desires, his creative power and his methods of work as well as his religious experience and his relation to nature and to death. By understanding the great drama of his life, we discover a new Max Weber, until now unknown in many respects, and, at the same time, we gain a new appreciation of his work. Joachim Radkau, born in 1943, is Professor of Modern History at the Bielefeld University, Germany. His interest in Max Weber dates back nearly forty years when he worked together with the German-American historian George W. F. Hallgarten (Washington), a refugee who left Germany in 1933 and who, as a student, listened to Weber’s last lecture in summer 1920. Radkau’s main works include Die deutsche Emigration in den USA (1971); Deutsche Industrie und Politik (together with G. W. F. Hallgarten, 1974), Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Atomwirtschaft (1983), Technik in Deutschland (1989), Das Zeitalter der Nervosität (1998), Natur und Macht: Eine Weltgeschichte der Umwelt (2000).

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

693

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

0745683428

ISBN 13

9780745683423

The Age of Ecology

By: Joachim Radkau

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Age of Ecology

By: Joachim Radkau

This book is the first major study of the history of environmentalism, from its origins in romanticism and the nature cults of the late 18th century to the global environmental movements of today. Radkau shows that this is not a single story of the steady ascent of environmentalism but rather a multiplicity of stories, each with its own dramatic tension: between single-issue movements and the challenges posed by the interconnection of environmental issues, between charismatic leaders and bureaucratic organizations, and between grassroot movements and global players. While the history can be traced back several centuries, environmentalism has flourished since the ‘environmental revolution’ of 1970, spurred on by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 and the growing concern about global warming. While environmentalists often opposed the scientific mainstream, they were also often led by scientific knowledge. Environmentalism is the true Enlightenment of our time Ð so much so that we can call our era ‘the age of ecology’. This timely and comprehensive global history of environmentalism will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the most pressing global issues of our time.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

570

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

0745679994

ISBN 13

9780745679990

Wood

A History

By: Joachim Radkau

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Wood

A History

By: Joachim Radkau

Ötzi the iceman could not do without wood when he was climbing his Alpine glacier, nor could medieval cathedral-builders or today's construction companies. From time immemorial, the skill of the human hand has developed by working wood, so much so that we might say that the handling of wood is a basic element in the history of the human body. The fear of a future wood famine became a panic in the 18th century and sparked the beginnings of modern environmentalism. This book traces the cultural history of wood and offers a highly original account of the connection between the raw material and the human beings who benefit from it. Even more, it shows that wood can provide a key for a better understanding of history, of the pecularities as well as the varieties of cultures, of a co-evolution of nature and culture, and even of the rise and fall of great powers. Beginning with Stone Age hunters, it follows the twists and turns of the story through the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution to the global society of the twenty-first century, in which wood is undergoing a varied and unexpected renaissance. Radkau is sceptical of claims that wood is about to disappear, arguing that such claims are self-serving arguments promoted by interest groups to secure cheaper access to, and control over, wood resources. The whole forest and timber industry often strikes the outsider as a world unto itself, a hermetically sealed black box, but when we lift the lid on this box, as Radkau does here, we will be surprised by what we find within. Wide-ranging and accessible, this rich historical analysis of one of our most cherished natural resources will find a wide readership.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

409

Publisher

Polity

Published Date

ISBN 10

0745646883

ISBN 13

9780745646886

Max Weber

A Biography

By: Joachim Radkau

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Max Weber

A Biography

By: Joachim Radkau

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

693

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

0745683428

ISBN 13

9780745683423

Wood

A History

By: Joachim Radkau

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Wood

A History

By: Joachim Radkau

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

591

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Published Date

ISBN 10

0745683614

ISBN 13

9780745683614

Escaping Nazi Germany

One Woman's Emigration from Heilbronn to England

By: Joachim Schlör

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Escaping Nazi Germany

One Woman's Emigration from Heilbronn to England

By: Joachim Schlör

Carefully piecing together the personal letters of Alice 'Liesel' Schwab, Escaping Nazi Germany tells the important story of one woman's emigration from Heilbronn to England. From the decision to leave her family and emigrate alone, to gaining her independence as a shop worker and surviving the Blitz, to the reunion with her brother and parents in England and shared grief as they learn about the fate of family members who died in the Holocaust, her story provides powerful insight into both the everyday realities of German-Jewish refugees in Britain and the ability of letters and life-writing to create transnational networks during times of trauma and separation. Elegantly written and deeply researched, Joachim Schlör's emphatic and unflinching re-telling of Alice Schwab's life sheds new light on the Jewish experience of persecution during the Holocaust and adds nuances to current debates on emigration, memory, and identity. This book is an essential primary resource for scholars of modern European history and Jewish studies, offering a compelling and intimate route into understanding what it meant to be a Jewish refugee caught up in the tragic and tumultuous events of World War II.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

275

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350154148

ISBN 13

9781350154148

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire

Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806

By: Joachim Whaley

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire

Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806

By: Joachim Whaley

In the first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborn's study written in the 1950s, Dr Whaley provides a full account of the history of the Holy Roman Empire. Volume II extends from the Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

773

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199693072

ISBN 13

9780199693078

Fragile Families

Marriage and Domestic Life in the Age of Bourgeois Modernity (1750-1900)

By: Joachim Eibach

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Fragile Families

Marriage and Domestic Life in the Age of Bourgeois Modernity (1750-1900)

By: Joachim Eibach

In the era of bourgeois modernity (1750–1900), the family is as valued as it is vulnerable. It constitutes a community of care, conflict, and emotion. Time and again, it is evoked as a bond of love as well as a moral institution. Yet both love and morality are fragile. A more detailed exploration reveals that domestic life during this period was much more colorful, open, and dynamic – and also more prone to crisis – than one might expect given the vaunted view of the family that characterized the heyday of the bourgeoisie. This book rewrites the history of the modern family. Self-narratives – primarily diaries – written by members of eight families from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria serve as sources for this research. The focus extends far beyond the bourgeoisie. With a micro-historical eye, the author reconstructs family histories from the peasant milieu to the patrician elite, from the parsonage to the educated bourgeoisie; he considers the domestic life of a journeyman craftsman, a couple’s descent from the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie, the effects of an itinerant childhood among the proletariat, and the strain of being caught between a bourgeois family and artistic individuality. Many of these aspects point beyond bourgeois modernity to the family in our time.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

306

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published Date

ISBN 10

3111081702

ISBN 13

9783111081700

The German Economy in the Twentieth Century

The German Reich and the Federal Republic

By: Hans-Joachim Braun

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The German Economy in the Twentieth Century

The German Reich and the Federal Republic

By: Hans-Joachim Braun

The twentieth century has seen Germany transformed from imperial monarchy, through Weimar democracy, National Socialist dictatorship, to finally divide into parliamentary democracy in the West and socialist Volksdemocratie in the East. Pivoting on two World Wars, intense political change has dramatically affected Germany's economic structure and development. This book traces the logic and the peculiarities of German economic development through the Weimar Republic, Third Reich and Federal Republic. Providing a comprehensive analysis of the period, the book also assesses controversial issues, such as the origins of the Great Depression, the primacy of politics or economics in the decision to invade Poland and the future risks to the Weltmeister economy of the Federal Republic oppressed by unemployment, the huge debts of some of its trading partners, and the possibility of worldwide protectionism.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

259

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

113497681X

ISBN 13

9781134976812

Book's by Joachim Radkau

Max Weber

Max Weber

The Age of Ecology

The Age of Ecology

Wood

Wood

Max Weber

Max Weber

Wood

Wood

Escaping Nazi Germany

Escaping Nazi Germany

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire

Fragile Families

Fragile Families

The German Economy in the Twentieth Century

The German Economy in the Twentieth Century

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email