This issue is devoted to a single article which sets out MaxWeber's thesis that Protestantism played a key and characterizing role in the development of capitalism and the modern world. The Weber Thesis is presented in a systematic fashion that relies on Weber's later Economy and Society rather than the presentation Weber made of it in his much earlier book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The Weber Thesis still seems to me to be the most persuasive theory about the origin and character of the modern world.
The purpose of this e-journal is to use in tandem the techniques of literary criticism and social structural analysis to illuminate American politics and the various institutions in American society and sometimes matters more global, like religion or war, by turning an eye on the events and objects and performances that are considered art and entertainment, those defined broadly enough to include whatever is covered in newspapers and other media. Another concern is to pick up the texture of social life, both in the United States and in general, through the analysis of those events, objects and performances that are to be found in everyday life. |
