The Religion of China

The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism is a book written by Max Weber, a German economist and sociologist. It was first published in German under the title Konfuzianismus und Taoismus in 1915 and an adapted version appeared in 1920. An English translation was published in 1951 and several editions have been released since.

It was his second major work on the sociology of religion, after The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber focused on those aspects of Chinese society that were different from those of Europe and Puritanism, and posed a question why capitalism did not develop in China. From the chronological perspective, he concentrated on early period of Chinese history (Hundred Schools of Thought, Warring States period), during which major Chinese schools of thoughts (Confucianism, Taoism) were invented. In that period, he focused on the issues of Chinese urban development, Chinese patrimonialism and officialdom, and Chinese religion, as the areas in which Chinese development differed most distinctively from the European route.^[1]

Weber's choice of topics and analysis inspired further attention and critique. The sociologist of Chinese religion C.K. Yang, for instance, wrote that Weber's interpretation is "largely the result of viewing the religious situation in Chinese culture from the view of the Christian world, where religion has a formal organizational system and has occupied a prominent structural position in the organizational scheme of Western society." ^[2]