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Yale University Press
April 2008
On Sale: March 28, 2008
336 pages
ISBN: 0300119097
EAN: 9780300119091
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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.
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