Shop Class as Soul Craft, a Review

     I have just finished reading a book which I wish to recommend.  The book is Shop Class As Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford. If you liked Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, then you'll love this book. It's a study of what's wrong with work in the modern world, and why most workers aren't very happy.  The author has an interesting background. As a child, he was raised in a hippie commune in Berkeley, CA.   He got a BA in physics, and then a PHD in philosophy, and worked for a while in a Washington think tank. But he quit that job to open a motorcycle repair shop.  And for many years, before he finished his PHD, he had worked off and on as an electrician's helper.

    He concludes that as we move away from work using tools to solve "one of a kind," hands-on problems in the real material world, we move away from the only kind of work that every gave workers a sense of personal empowerment or pride of workmanship.   He says that the skilled trades are the last refuge of meaningful work, and goes on to prove this with both practical examples and persuasive philosophical arguments. 

  This is a guy who says some of the things I have always said--only says it beautifully.   You're going to love it.