Werner Sombart, the German economic and social theorist, was born in Ermsleben near the Harz Mountains. He was professor of economics at the University of Breslau from 1890 to 1906 and at Berlin University from 1906 to 1931. Sombart made a strong impact on German economic thought and policies; he played a leading role in the Verein für Sozialpolitik and the Deutsche Soziologische Gesellschaft, and he was joint editor with Max Weber and Edgar Jaffe of the journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik.

Sombart's interests covered economic and social history and theory, sociology, and the methodology of the social sciences, although his contributions to methodology were more polemical than constructive. Together with Wilhelm Dilthey, Heinrich Rickert, Karl Jaspers, and Max and Alfred Weber, he helped to establish modern German historical and cultural sociology. Sombart was a highly prolific writer, and few of his writings are free...