Values are to be restricted to the times before social research begins and after the data are collected. They should shape the selection of what we choose to study and how we interpret what we find. Weber’s (1903-1917/1949;21) ideas on the role of values prior to social research are captured in his concept of value-relevance. As with many other of weber’s methodological concepts, value-relevance is derived from the work of the German historicist Heinrich Rickert, for whom it involved “a selection of those parts of empirical reality which for human beings embody one or several of those general cultural values which are held by people in the society in which the scientific observers live” (burger.1976:36). In historical research, this would mean that the choice of objects to study would be made on the basis of what is considered important in the particular society in which the researchers live. That is, they choose what to study of the past on the basis of the contemporary value system. In his specific case, weber wrote of value-relevance from the “standpoint of the interests of the modern European” (1903-1917:30). For example, bureaucracy was a very important part of the German society of weber’s time, and he chose, as a result, to study that phenomenon (or the lack of it) in various historical settings.