The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

By: Max Weber

Narrated by: Monroe Clark McBride

Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day powerful and fascinating. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ethic made possible and encouraged the development of capitalism in the West. Widely considered as the most informed work ever written on the social effects of advanced capitalism, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism holds its own as one of the most significant books of the 20th century. The book is one of those rare works of scholarship which no informed citizen can afford to ignore.

Public Domain (P)2017 Cherry Hill Publishing, LLC

A missed opportunity

The content of Weber's book is well worth familiarizing yourself with. However, the dull and dry tone of the narrator makes it a struggle to listen to. This is made worse by numerous occasions where the narrator stumbles over his words. The sound engineer really dropped the ball here by not suggesting another attempt at the reading, or at least editing the mishaps. I was also surprised to find that the final chapter was nothing but music, and not a very good selection at that. I don't like to criticize all of these details, but for an audiobook production, it's poorly done. Max Weber clearly took his time to provide a detailed account of the protestant influence in capitalism, so its a shame that what could have been a captivating listen turned out to be a chore.

A subpar reading

A muffled, boring reading of an important work. Puts you to sleep in no time.

Great Jump Start

This is a challenging book in audio from because it's so dense with content. It is a proper gateway into the subject of how religious ethos affected the culture around good work ethic. Several other books on similar topics were written around this time period and are worth exploring as well.
I was lectured on this book from a Marxist professor who thought capitalism and religion were both evil and exploitative. It's no wonder she never made us read directly from the source, otherwise her students would doubt what she was preaching.
Instant classic in my opinion. It also helped answer some questions I had about different religious denominations in the US and what they believed in.

Very good unprejudiced scholar

It is refreshing to read a book by a real scholar. Hey makes very good points very accurately. A must read for any civilized person.

A dense but rewarding classic – essential for understanding modern capitalism

Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a landmark sociological study that goes far beyond the surface-level discussion of religion and money. Through detailed historical, theological, and philosophical exploration, Weber convincingly argues how specific strands of Protestantism – particularly Calvinism and Puritanism – laid the psychological and cultural groundwork for what would later become the modern capitalist spirit.

The audiobook narration is clear and well-paced, though the density of the material may require frequent rewinds or a second listen for full comprehension. Still, the effort is well worth it: Weber’s insights into duty, rationalization, asceticism, and the “iron cage” of modernity are timeless and disturbingly relevant.