The Craftsman

Product Description

Provocative & enlightening, Richard Sennett`s ” The Craftsman” is an exploration of craftsmanship
- the desire to do a job well for its own sake
- as a template for living. Most of us have to work. But is work just a means to an end? In trying to make a living, have we lost touch with the idea of making things well? Pure competition, Sennett shows, will never produce good work. Instead, the values of the craftsman, whether in a Stradivari violin workshop or a modern laboratory, can enrich our lives & change the way we anchor ourselves in the world around us. The past lives of crafts & craftsmen show us ways of working
- using tools, acquiring skills, thinking about materials
- which provide rewarding alternative ways for people to utilise their talents. We need to recognize this if motivations are to be understood & lives made as fulfilling as possible. ” Lively, engaging & pertinent.. .a lifetime`s learning has gone into the writing of this book”. (Roger Scruton, ” Sunday Times”). ” An enchanting writer with important things to say”. (Fiona Mac Carthy, ” Guardian”). ” Enthralling... Sennett is keen to reconnect thinking with making, to revive the simple pleasure in the everyday object & the useful task. There is something here for all of us”. (Edwin Heathcote, ” Financial Times”). ”A masterpiece”. (Boyd Tonkin, ” Independent”). Richard Sennett`s previous books include ” The Fall of Public Man”, ” The Corrosion of Character”, ” Flesh & Stone” & ” Respect”. He was founder director of the New York Institute for the Humanities, & is now University Professor at New York University & Academic Governor & Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.