Weber, Max. The History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages: The First Complete English Edition of Weber's Prelude to the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Economy and Society

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2005 by Michael L. Hirsch

This text would be appropriate for any undergraduate or graduate seminar on the works of Weber. It will also be of interest to legal scholars specializing in business law and students of the sociology of law. It is certainly to be prized by all those interested in the work of Weber.

NOTES

(1) This is "an undertaking in which someone sells goods owned by someone else on a commercial basis, at that person's risk, for a share in the profit" (p. 65).

(2) Even in the oldest sources of law, the patronus navis is the one who provides the ships, and he is the counterpart to the merchants who accompany their goods in person on these ships" (p. 65).

(3) This is "a traveling associate" of a sedentary investor (p. 23).

Michael L. Hirsch, Ph.D.

Chair--Division of Liberal Studies

Huston-Tillotson College

Austin, Texas