Max Weber is famous for his thesis that the “ Protestant ethic ” (the supposedly Protestant values of hard work, thrift, efficiency, and orderliness) contributed to the economic success of Protestant groups in the early stages of European capitalism. Weber was the eldest son of Max and Helene Weber.

In general, Weber’s greatest merit as a thinker was that he brought the social sciences in Germany, hitherto preoccupied largely with national problems, into direct critical confrontation with the international giants of 19th-century European thought—Marx and Nietzsche; and, through this confrontation, Weber helped create a methodology and a body of literature dealing with the sociology of religion, political parties, and the...

Weber is best known for his thesis of combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion, emphasising the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism (contrasting Marx's historical materialism ).