Max Weber is noted for his diagnosis of the rationalization of life under capitalism. But in his social thought he also developed a powerful theory of the process of 'sociation' and associational life. This paper investigates the latter aspect of his thought in the context of his and Marianne Weber's American journey. Their observations about the religious sects, the African-American community, educational insti tutions, and the position of women reveal an understanding of democ ratization as a process of voluntaristic sociation, (...) whose original model is the sect. In these institutional settings and through their interactions with figures like William James, W. E. B. Du Bois, and M. Carey Thomas, the Webers develop a view of American social life that empha sizes the contribution of associative activity to the moral and political education of individuals, and to the creation of a distinctively modern form of democratic culture. (shrink)

Weber and his work functioned in two ways: both as a bridge to the new, to the world of capitalist modernity, as well as a road to an acceptable cosmopolitan ‘liberal’ historical past. It was Weber the cosmopolitan and outsider who could give legitimacy and weight to the intellectual orientations and problems thought to be significant for the community in exile. It was this Weber who could cushion the ‘negative shock’ of what was often perceived as America’s ‘intellectual and cultural (...) provincialism’ and establish for the emigre scholar and intellectual the historical task of assisting in the development of American intellectual and cultural life. At the same time, the presence of a different Weber in America, already an established interest of several scholars emerging into prominence, such as Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils, created difficulties as well as opportunities for the emigre scholars. Because of such variety the field for the transmission, reception, and influence of Weber’s work must be approached as a complicated, multilayered, and contested patchwork of disparate and sometimes partially overlapping social and professional networks. (shrink)