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Veblen
U.S. economist. Born in Manitowoc County, Wisc., he grew up in Minnesota and earned a PhD in philosophy from Yale Univ. He taught economics at the Univ. of Chicago and other universities but was unable to keep any position for long because of his unconventional ideas and the disorder in his personal life. In 1899 he published his classic work The Theory of the Leisure Class, which applied Darwin's evolutionary theories to the study of modern economic life, highlighting the competitive and predatory nature of the business world. With dry humor he identified the markers of Amer. social class, and he coined the term "conspicuous consumption" to describe the display of wealth made by the upper class. His reputation was highest in the 1930s, when the Great Depression was seen as a vindication of his criticism of the business system.


Weber
German sociologist and political economist. Son of a wealthy liberal politician and a Calvinist mother, Weber was a compulsively diligent scholar who suffered occasional nervous collapses. Insights derived from his own experience inform his most famous and controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-5), which examines the relationship between Calvinist (or Puritan) morality, compulsive labor, bureaucracy, and economic success under capitalism (see Protestant ethic). Weber also wrote penetratingly on social phenomena such as charisma and mysticism, which he saw as antithetical to the modern world and its underlying process of rationalization. His efforts helped establish sociology as an academic discipline in Germany, and his work continues to stimulate scholarship. Through his insistence on the need for objectivity and his analysis of human action in terms of motivation, he profoundly influenced sociological theory. His voluminous writings, mostly published posthumously, include Economy and Society (2 vols., 1922-25) and General Economic History (1923).

German composer. Son of a musician and theater manager, and first cousin to W. A. Mozart's wife, he was born with a deformed hip and was never strong. He had composition lessons with Michael Haydn (1737-1806) and with Abbé Vogler (1749-1814), who recommended him for a post in Breslau (1804-6). His operas began to have success, and took over direction of the Prague Opera (1813-16), which he saved from ruin, but finding little time for composition, he resigned. Showing signs of the tuberculosis that would kill him, he began to compose more prolifically. Appointed kapellmeister for life in Dresden, he began work on his masterpiece, Der Freischü tz (1821), whose premiere made him an international star. The libretto for his next opera, Euryanthe (1823), was so bad that its admirable music never succeeded, and his final opera, Oberon (1826), composed for London, was a success there but not elsewhere. He died in England at 39.


Welles
U.S. politician. Born in Glastonbury, ...

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