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Max Weber (1864-1920) enjoys a world reputation as a jurist, economist, historian and sociologist. As a sociologist he has become known in particular for his publications on methodology and for his studies on the sociology of religion, law and music and on political and industrial sociology. Little is known of Weber as a rural sociologist (sec. I), even among American and European rural sociologists (sec. III), in spite of the fact that Weber was intensively concerned with agrarian and rural problems over a period of years (sec. II). Although he did not at the time regard himself as a sociologist (sec. II), the sociological tendency of his 'rural' studies is unmistakable (sec. IV). In the final section (sec. V) it is put forward that Weber's lack of proper recognition among rural sociologists might be mainly due to the poor correlation between rural sociology on the one hand, and general sociology and the various other branches of sociology on the other hand. Rural sociology is not innocent of a certain 'professional blindness'. The paper is concluded with a plea for a serious confrontation between rural sociology and the work of Max Weber, as well as with that of other classical and modern authors in the field of the science of which rural sociology expressly claims to be a branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]