The City by Max Weber

e., authorities in whose option the burghers participated) (Weber, 1958, p. 81).

This conception of the city describes only the emergence of Western cities since, with chance(a) exceptions in the Near East, Weber did not find such a pattern in other parts of the world. later on setting out the basis of his theory Weber address the development of the city in comparative terms -- despicable from ancient to medieval examples to demonstrate how the gradual emergence of the elements of the urban community came almost in Europe. Weber also engages in frequent comparisons of Western and Eastern cities. These comparisons are somewhat problematic. epoch Weber may be perfectly correct in his analyses he does not supply enough information to tally them useful. Much of the book proceeds on the reasonable self-confidence that the reader is familiar with the general outlines of the history of Europe. But in his interpretations of Asian urban development, the manner in which he generalizes about all of Asia or even all of China tends to hold back this comparative part of his analysis seem unnecessary. Even the European references are sometimes so general or feeble as to make his reasoning seem rather obscure. When he draws parallels, for example, between the "gods" of Chinese cities and the local saints of medieval communities the references to both concepts are so vague as to render them useless. The whole idea

of the influence of the religious parish on community formation, while it is referred to numerous times, is never made explicit. In some other case he call forths the role of the Jews as a " customer tribe" in Babylonia but compares them with the Jews of Northern European cities and moreover refers to the latter as being separated from the Christian bulk by the "ritualistic exclusion of connubialism" which "blocked fraternization" (p. 102). though he mentions a document in which a German bishop called in the Jews "for the greater glory of the city," there is no mention of what their role was there. Certainly the specific functions of Jews in the economies of medieval cities was an grand factor in their presence there.

The fact that it was, in part, their purpose-built maintenance of a separate culture that made them worthy to the cities is belied by the comparison with their presence in Babylonia as, apparently, one among many such guests and not, it seems, occupying an analogous position in regard to function. clear exclusion from full citizenship, certainly vastly different notions in the two places, seems to be the basis of this comparison. The particulars of this example are not important in themselves, the example is merely indicative of the fall of broad assertions Weber makes that seem either unrelated to his thesis or related in a fashion that is single-handed by any material he provides.

Weber, M. (1958). The city. Introduction by D. Martindale. Translated by D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth. New York: Free Press.

In Weber's view the plow of community evolution, in broadest outline, first involved the displacement of conventional clan-based nobility by new rulers, and the replacement of these patricians by a coalition of burghers. The heart of this analysis, in the discussions of the Italian cities, is quite win over -- especially when he contrasts cities that followed this path with cities that went in another direction, such as Venice with
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