Social Network Analysis and Data Visualization of Max Weber’s Collected Letters

Max Weber’s Collected Works (Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe) in German were fully published in 2020. The volumes include 34713,471 letters written and sent by Max Weber between 1875 toand 1920. TheThese publications posepresent several challenges to Weber’s scholarship due to the language barrier and the hundred yearcentury-long interval between Weber’s demisedeath and the publicationrelease of his collected works. Against this backdrop, this article applies novel network analysis tools to explore the relationshiprelationships between Weber and his correspondents. With the complete collection of his letters now available to Weberian scholars, we have undertaken an innovative project that integrates data science into this field. To achieve this, we haveWe extracted metadata from Weber’s Collected Works to construct network data. We employed, employing R and various R packages to applyfor network analysis and data visualization. Additionally, we also providedhave made the dataset and R scripts available online as open-access resources to facilitate reproducibility. As we employ onlyWhile our research relies solely on statistical analysis of Weber’s letters without qualitative examination, the scope of our research could be considered limited. Nevertheless, we feel our researchwe believe it makes a meaningful contribution to Weberian studies. By academically exploring the Collected Letters, this study isrepresents a pioneering effort with significant implications, encouraging further research and scholarship in the field.