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The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett
by noteworthy at 11:09 pm EST, Mar 8, 2008 |
Richard Sennett, author of The Culture of the New Capitalism, and husband of Saskia Sassen (colleague and counterpoint to Manuel Castells) has a new book. He says: “It’s a book about the relation between doing things physically, with your hands, and thinking,” he said. “We’re losing that connection between physical and mental skills. Even the most abstract kinds of thinking, like mathematics, draw on something physical.”
From the jacket: Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than “skilled manual labor,” Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world. The Craftsman engages the many dimensions of skill—from the technical demands to the obsessive energy required to do good work. Craftsmanship leads Sennett across time and space, from ancient Roman brickmakers to Renaissance goldsmiths to the printing presses of Enlightenment Paris and the factories of industrial London; in the modern world he explores what experiences of good work are shared by computer programmers, nurses and doctors, musicians, glassblowers, and cooks. Unique in the scope of his thinking, Sennett expands previous notions of crafts and craftsmen and apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things.
Praise from Robert Reich: As Richard Sennett makes clear in this lucid and compelling book, craftsmanship once connected people to their work by conferring pride and meaning. The loss of craftsmanship -- and of a society that values it -- has impoverished us in ways we have long forgotten but Sennett helps us understand.
New Statesman says: The sociologist Richard Sennett has a habit of writing the things that we end up talking about years later.
To learn more, read the prologue, or check out this ... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ] |
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RE: The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett
by ubernoir at 10:05 am EDT, Mar 9, 2008 |
noteworthy wrote:
Richard Sennett, author of The Culture of the New Capitalism, and husband of Saskia Sassen (colleague and counterpoint to Manuel Castells) has a new book. He says: “It’s a book about the relation between doing things physically, with your hands, and thinking,” he said. “We’re losing that connection between physical and mental skills. Even the most abstract kinds of thinking, like mathematics, draw on something physical.”
From the jacket: Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than “skilled manual labor,” Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world. The Craftsman engages the many dimensions of skill—from the technical demands to the obsessive energy required to do good work. Craftsmanship leads Sennett across time and space, from ancient Roman brickmakers to Renaissance goldsmiths to the printing presses of Enlightenment Paris and the factories of industrial London; in the modern world he explores what experiences of good work are shared by computer programmers, nurses and doctors, musicians, glassblowers, and cooks. Unique in the scope of his thinking, Sennett expands previous notions of crafts and craftsmen and apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things.
Praise from Robert Reich: As Richard Sennett makes clear in this lucid and compelling book, craftsmanship once connected people to their work by conferring pride and meaning. The loss of craftsmanship -- and of a society that values it -- has impoverished us in ways we have long forgotten but Sennett helps us understand.
New Statesman says: The sociologist Richard Sennett has a habit of writing the things that we end up talking about years later.
To learn more, read the prologue, or check out this ... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]
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