On the Roads to Modernity: Conscience, Science, and Civilizations: Selected Writings by Benjamin Nelson, with a New Introduction

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This book contains highly original essays on the sweep of Western civilization from the middle ages to the present, including such topics as conscience and usury, "probabilism" in science and theology, systems of spiritual direction, Max Weber and economic development. The author and editor explore issues in the comparative history of science and the riveting question of why modern science arose only in the West and not in China or the Muslim world. It is a continuation of the challenging civilizational agenda set out by Max Weber's writings on the world religions, including the fate and vicissitudes of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Nelson had much to say about processes of universalization, now studied as globalization.

Author Bio

Benjamin Nelson was a wide ranging New York intellectual, trained at Columbia in medieval history, who wrote a classic study, The Idea of Usury. Hebecame a sociologist and continued to explore large issues in philosophy, psychoanalysis and the construction of systems of spiritual direction. He taught at the University of Chicago, at Minnesota, and at the New School for Social Research. He also served as editor of many books in the famous Harper & Row paperback series of classic authors.

Toby E. Huff is a research associate at Harvard University and Chancellor Professor Emeritus at UMass Dartmouth. He is the author of Max Weber and the Methodology of the Social Sciences (1984), The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West (2nd ed. Cambridge 2003); Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution. A Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2010) as well as co-editor with Wolfgang Schluchter of Max Weber and Islam (1999). He has lectured in Europe, Asia and across the Muslim world.