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Paul Reynolds, "Max Weber: Still Relevant After All These Years?" (Review of Bryan Turner, Max Weber: From History to Modernity), Res Publica III/2 (1997), 247-253: This review article discusses the continuing relevance of the paradigmic modernist thinker, Max Weber, to contemporary social thought through a discussion of the recent publication of Bryan Turner, Max Weber: From History to Modernity. It supports Turner's view that a re-reading of Weber confirms his prescience in anticipating and discussing many of the themes which engage thinkers engaged with the ideas and critiques of post-modernism. Situating Weber in his historical, biographical and intellectual context helps the reader to understand the partiality of the reading of Weber as theorising modernity contra Marx. Turner shows how Weber needs to be understood in dialogue with Marx, and with Nietzsche, Simmel, George and the Romantics. For Turner, Weber is a sceptic of the 'benefits' of modernism and as a critical thinker who precociously grasped the complexities and problems of social theory which exercise post-modern critiques. He also recognised, however, the responsibility of social theorists to explain their world, and so avoided the quietism that has so characterised post-modern thinking. e-mail: reynoldp@admin.edge-hill-college.ac.uk

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