Reinhard Bendix; Sociology Professor Considered Max Weber’s Successor

Reinhard Bendix, a political sociologist considered by colleagues to be the contemporary successor to Max Weber, has died of a heart attack.

Bendix, professor emeritus of sociology and political science at UC Berkeley, died Thursday, just three days after his 75th birthday.

The author of several books, he was a leading comparative historical sociologist who studied authority and economic relations in Russia, Japan and Western Europe. Colleagues say he is frequently discussed as the contemporary to Weber, the late-19th- and early-20th-Century German social scientist who was one of the founders of modern sociology.

Bendix’s most recent work was his 1986 book, “From Berkeley to Berlin.”

Born Feb. 25, 1916, in Berlin, Bendix came to the United States in 1938 as a refugee from Hitler’s Germany. He enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1941, his master’s in 1943--the same year he became an American citizen--and his doctorate in 1947.