Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of charismatic authority developed by Max Weber (1864-1920) to explain why people welcome some as their legitimate rulers and follow them loyally, for better or worse, while following others only dutifully or grudgingly. Weber was fascinated by those such as Napoleon (above) and Washington who achieved power not by right, as with traditional monarchs, or by law as with the bureaucratic world around him in Germany, but by revolution or insurrection. Drawing on the experience of religious figures, he contended that these leaders, often outsiders, needed to be seen as exceptional, heroic and even miraculous to command loyalty, and could stay in power for as long as the people were enthralled and the miracles they had promised kept coming. After the Second World War, Weber's idea attracted new attention as a way of understanding why some reviled leaders once had mass support and, with the arrival of television, why some politicians were more engaging and influential on screen than others. With Linda Woodhead, The FD Maurice Professor and Head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London David Bell, The Lapidus Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University Tom Wright, Reader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
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Max Weber, 1864 to 1920, devised the idea of charismatic authority to explain why people accept some as their legitimate rulers and not others.
Traditional monarchs and those appointed by law were one thing, but what of the individuals, often revolutionaries, who need to be seen as exceptional, heroic, even miraculous, to command loyalty?
And for Beber, that charismatic person can disrupt the old order, both for better and for worse, and stay in power for as long as the people are enthralled and the miracles keep coming.
With me to discuss the idea about charisma are Linda Woodhead, the FD Morris professor and head of the department of theology and religious studies at King's College London, David Bell, Lepidus professor in the department of history at Princeton University and Tom Wright, reader in rhetoric at the University of Sussex.
Tom Wright, what do we need to know about Max Weber in the period in which he was working?
So Max Weber was born into a large, prosperous, cosmopolitan family in Irfurt in central Germany.