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In the late-1980s, following the collapse of state socialism and the accompanying decline of Marxist sociology, Weber's writings on religion, power and culture, began to take centre-stage in sociological debates over the basis of the institutional structures and cultural value-systems that characterise the modern world. Many, in turn, presented Weber as a theorist of "modernity" (see, for example, Whimster and Lash, 1987; Schluchter, 1996; C. Turner, 1992; Kalberg, 2005), in spite of the fact that Weber himself did not once use this term. Others extended this focus by exploring connections between Weber's work and postmodern theory or more broadly postmodernism (C. Turner, 1990; B. Turner, 1992:3–21; Gane, 2002; Koshul, 2005). Such analyses used Weber to draw into question, among other things: the polytheism of contemporary culture; ongoing processes of rationalisation; political, aesthetic and erotic possibilities of re-enchantment; and even the ongoing value of sociology as a discipline. Fierce debates ensued over the differences between the modern and postmodern, modernity and postmodernity; debates that rumbled on until the late-1990s, when two things happened. First, the global started to displace the modern as the key conceptual point of concern. This signalled a spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities, as a focus on questions of space, place and mobility became increasingly central to social and cultural analysis.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137271181_7

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