The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth. By Liah Greenfeld. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 541. $45.00.
本书挑战韦伯关于新教伦理与资本主义精神的经典论点，提出经济增长的唯一驱动力是民族主义，而非宗教因素。适合对经济史、民族主义与文化经济学感兴趣的读者。
The title of this book attests to the fact that the author “communed” with Max Weber's famous thesis whilst doing her own research. She is absolutely at one with Weber—and Keynes!—in insisting that there is a spirit of capitalism, an irrationality underlying rational calculation whereby one continues to work even when one's needs have been met. Spirit of this sort is held to be a cultural idiosyncracy rather than an a universal norm. However, this spirit has nothing to do with religion, not least for the central reason given by Tawney—namely that Protestant reformers sought to control the economy quite as much as did their predecessors. The author offers us a bold and sustained alternative view: economic growth resulted from one thing and one thing only—the presence of nationalism.