The study of Caesarism lends itself to at least two distinctive lines of enquiry, and both of them have rather different implications for our understanding of Max Weber. The first approach treats Caesarism as an idea whose value hinges on its historical veracity and conceptual utility. Does Caesarism help illuminate particular chapters of European history, particularly those of the French and German Second Empires? Or is it a largely vacuous idea, overgeneralized and tending toward obfuscation? Historians and political theorists, as we know, disagree fundamentally on these questions, yet all disputants are free in principle to enlist Max Weber to support their cause. They can do this by treating his concept of Caesarism in much the same way as they would his concepts of charisma, rationality, and bureaucracy, either applying it to various political formations or showing its essential limitations and inadequacy. So considered, Weber would be in effect a forerunner of our (laudable or misguided, depending on one’s standpoint) modern efforts to understand, say, Bismarck’s regime or plebiscitary rule more generally.