Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work
by Matthew B. Crawford

Summary

A philosopher/mechanic's wise (and sometimes funny) look at the challenges and pleasures of working with one's hands.

Those of us who sit in an office often feel a lack of connection to the material world and find it difficult to say exactly what we do all day. For anyone who felt hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, Shop Class as Soulcraft seeks to restore the honor of the manual trades as a life worth choosing.

Based on his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Matthew Crawford makes a case for the kind of work that requires mastery of real things. Surprisingly, such work can be more intellectually demanding than the sort that deals in abstractions. Maintenance and repair work also cultivate certain ethical virtues, fostering habits of individual responsibility. Crawford explores differences and surprising connections between knowledge work, the manual trades, the assembly line, and the cubicle.

Manual trades demand careful thinking, offer intrinsic satisfaction and cognitive challenge, and are punctuated by moments of genuine pleasure. Manual work cannot be outsourced, and it cannot be made obsolete. Such work ties us to the local communities in which we live, and instills the pride that comes from doing work that is genuinely useful.

Shop Class as Soulcraft rouses us from the passivity and dependence of consumer culture with a bracing call for self-reliance. It is a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.

Praise

A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year.

"Shop Class as Soulcraft is a beautiful little book about human excellence and the way it is undervalued in contemporary America." — New York Times Book Review

"A superb combination of testimony and reflection ... you can't put it down." — Harvey Mansfield, Harvard University

"May upend your preconceptions about labor and, just maybe, cause you to rethink your career (or how you spend your weekends)...Impassioned and profound." — The Washington Post

About the Author

Matthew B. Crawford is a philosopher and mechanic. He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago. He is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He also runs Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop in Richmond, Virginia.

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