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Shop Class as Soulcraft

An Inquiry Into the Value of Work
Dec 23, 2010ranXerox rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
An exceptionally impressive work from an academic who has been witness to the tedium of knowledge-based industries. The author proposes that trade-based employment can offer the individual as much or more cognitive challenges and self fulfillment than they might find in any career as a symbolic analyst (high tech worker). Through personal examples (eg: a $23,000/yr job writing 250 word abstracts of journal articles which he finds soul deadening) and a diverse use of philosophers and sociologists, Mr Crawford gives the reader truly illuminating insights into how far our society has tipped in pursuit of abstraction over physicality and artfully critiques the corporate culture permeating the former. I can not recommend this book highly enough and suggest it belongs right next to Curtis White's brilliant "The Spirit of Disobedience". With all due respect to other comments here, I did not find the author "wandering off" at all. This is a tightly argued, persuasive and extremely good book.