Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives

Abstract: To find the productive implications beyond ‘Weber fever’, a contested theme of ‘the Confucian ethic and economic development’, this article attempts to first examine the dual context in which Weber’s works were introduced before 1949, then to scrutinize the interpretations and evaluations of Weber’s work in the 1980s. Moreover, an overview of the Chinese translations of Weber’s work and influential introductory materials is also necessary to understand the reception of Weber. While the reception among early Chinese sociologists before 1949 was separated by the division of disciplines, the reinvention of Weber during the 1980s appeared in at least three different forms in Taiwan and mainland China. Both Taiwanese and Chinese sociologists played crucial roles in establishing Weber as a social theorist of modernity, respectively resisted the Americanized Weber and developed a particular image of Weber in the Chinese-speaking academic world.

Keywords: Max Weber, Max Weber studies, reception, modernization, translation