The Oxford Book of Work

by KeithThomas (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $6.65

  Primal curse or sacred duty? Painful drudgery or the only sure route to human happiness? Work has always evoked conflicting reactions. Yet whether we view it as a tedious necessity or embrace it as a compulsive addiction, it remains an inescapable and endlessly fascinating part of the human condition. To illuminate the changing experience of work, this anthology draws upon a huge range of writers from classical antiquity to modern times: poets, dramatists, and novelists; theologians, economists, and philosophers; social investigators and journalists; diarists, letter-writers, and autobiographers. It explores many different forms of work, from ploughing a field to writing a poem, not forgetting housework and other forms of unpaid labour. The whole of human life is here: young people starting employment, the redundant searching for jobs, the old coping with retirement, utopians seeking to eliminate work altogether. The delights of occupation and the harshness of compulsory labour are contrasted with the pleasures of rest and idleness. Keith Thomas's magisterial compilation and scintillating introductory essay show that work does not just provide us with the means of subsistence; it also makes possible all the pleasures and achievements of civilization.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $3.28

  Primal curse or sacred duty? Drudgery and toil or the only sure route to human happiness? What we do defines us, and work is the subject of endless fascination. This anthology explores the nature of work and our attitudes to it from God's first punishment to the present day. It draws upon the imaginative writing of novelists and poets and also on the works of theologians, economists, philosophers, social investigators, journalists, diarists, letter writers and autobiographers, all those who have analyzed, observed, and portrayed the experience of work As well as illustrating some of the occupations in which we earn our living, from physical labour to intellectual pursuits, from agriculture and industry to the City and the law courts, this book shows how the experience of work has changed over time, and how workers have responded to, and writers represented, that changing experience. It considers the meaning of work that is done under physical compulsion and out of economic necessity and the validity of housework, schoolwork, and other kinds of unrewarded labour. Rest, leisure, and idleness exist in opposition to work and the effects of redundancy and retirement are not overlooked.