May Weber wrote the essays in this book, as all useful methodological essays, in the closest intimacy with actual research and against a background of constant and intensive meditation on substantive problems in the theory and strategy of the social sciences. They were written in the years between 1903 and 1917, the most productive years of Max Weber's life, when he was working on his studies in the sociology of religion and on the second and third parts of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Even before Weber achieved fame, he had done important work in economic and legal history and had taught economic theory as the incumbent of one of the most famous chairs in Germany. On the basis of original investigations, he had acquired a specialist's knowledge of the details of German economic and social structure. His always vital concern for the political prosperity of Germany among the nations thrust him deeply into discussion of political ideals and programs. Weber did not come to the methodology of the social sciences as an outsider who seeks to impose standards on practices and problems of which he is ignorant. His methodology still holds interest for us. Some of its shortcomings in the volume, from the contemporary viewpoint, may be attributed to the fact that some of the methodological problems that he treated could not be satisfactorily resolved prior to certain actual developments in research technique. These qualifications aside, the work remains a pioneering work in large scale social research, from one of the field's masters.