Weber made signifi cant contributions to modern
sociology by emphasizing the goal of value-free
inquiry and the necessity of understanding how
others see the world. He also provided important
insights on the process of rationalization, bureaucracy,
religion, and many other topics. In his writings,
Weber was more aware of women’s issues than
many of the scholars of his day. Perhaps his awareness
at least partially resulted from the fact that his
wife, Marianne Weber, was an important fi gure in
the women’s movement in Germany in the early
twentieth century (Roth, 1988).
Georg Simmel At about the same time that
Durkheim was developing the fi eld of sociology in
France, the German sociologist Georg Simmel (pro-
▲ Max Weber nounced ZIM-mel) (1858–1918) was theorizing