Max Weber wrote these methodological essays in the closest intimacy with actual research, and against a background of constant and intensive meditation on substantive problems in the theory and strategy of the social sciences. They were written between 1903 and 1917, the most productive years of Max Weber's life, when he was working on his studies in the sociology of religion and Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. The effort remains a pioneering work in large-scale social research, from one of the field's masters.