The Craftsman

Why do people work hard, and take pride in what they do? This book, a philosophically-minded enquiry into practical activity of many different kinds past and present, is about what happens when people try to do a good job. It asks us to think about the true meaning of skill in the 'skills society' and argues that pure competition is a poor way to achieve quality work. Sennett suggests, instead, that there is a craftsman in every human being, which can sometimes be enormously motivating and inspiring - and can also in other circumstances make individuals obsessive and frustrated."The Craftsman" shows how history has drawn fault-lines between craftsman and artist, maker and user, technique and expression, practice and theory, and that individuals' pride in their work, as well as modern society in general, suffers from these historical divisions. But the past lives of crafts and 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 recognise this if motivations are to be understood and lives made as fulfilling as possible.

Politics & Social Sciences

SENNETT, Richard

Philosophy

Penguin Books, Ltd.

In his first book to be published in the United States, German photographer Thomas Struth explores the social space and mental state of the modern metropolis. Thomas Struth: Strangers & Friends covers the entire trajectory of Struth's career and his work in several subject matters, including his restrained and rigorous architectural photographs, intimate family portraits, and frenzied museum interiors.  A former student of artist Gerhard Richter and of photographers Hilla and Bernd Becher, Struth began in the early 1980s to make steely black and white photographs of deserted city streets and decaying buildings in a restrained and rigorous style that seemed to underscore his debt to his teachers. In recent years, his work has diversified in subject, scale, and color to embrace increasingly ambitious subjects and challenging locations. Struth has extended his urban investigation to the inhabitants and interior spaces of the city, from Naples to Tokyo to Chicago to Berlin, portraying the relationships, conscious and unconscious, through which we build and abandon our identities in a world of transitory physical and social structures.  Thomas Struth: Strangers & Friends continues a notable tradition of books by German photographers from August Sander and Albert Renger-Patzsch to Hilla and Bernd Becher. It is the most complete presentation of Struth's work to date, following Unconscious Places (1987) and Museum Photographs (1993).

Thomas Struth: Strangers and Friends

Arts & Photography

Struth, Thomas

Photography & Video

Mit Pr

Living with people who differ—racially, ethnically, religiously, or economically—is the most urgent challenge facing civil society today. We tend socially to avoid engaging with people unlike ourselves, and modern politics encourages the politics of the tribe rather than of the city. In this thought-provoking book, Richard Sennett discusses why this has happened and what might be done about it.
Sennett contends that cooperation is a craft, and the foundations for skillful cooperation lie in learning to listen well and discuss rather than debate. In Together he explores how people can cooperate online, on street corners, in schools, at work, and in local politics. He traces the evolution of cooperative rituals from medieval times to today, and in situations as diverse as slave communities, socialist groups in Paris, and workers on Wall Street. Divided into three parts, the book addresses the nature of cooperation, why it has become weak, and how it could be strengthened. The author warns that we must learn the craft of cooperation if we are to make our complex society prosper, yet he reassures us that we can do this, for the capacity for cooperation is embedded in human nature.

Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation

Reference

Yale University Press

In his most ambitious book to date, Richard Sennett offers an original perspective on craftsmanship and its close connections to work and ethical values Craftsmanship, says Richard Sennett, names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. The computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen all engage in a craftsman’s work. In this thought-provoking book, Sennett 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.

In this sequel to his influential work The Craftsman, Richard Sennett explores how we can learn to cooperate in the intensely tribal, competitive, and self-interested cultures we inhabit Living with people who differ—racially, ethnically, religiously, or economically—is the most urgent challenge facing civil society today. We tend socially to avoid engaging with people unlike ourselves, and modern politics encourages the politics of the tribe rather than of the city. In this thought-provoking book, Richard Sennett discusses why this has happened and what might be done about it.
Sennett contends that cooperation is a craft, and the foundations for skillful cooperation lie in learning to listen well and discuss rather than debate. In Together he explores how people can cooperate online, on street corners, in schools, at work, and in local politics. He traces the evolution of cooperative rituals from medieval times to today, and in situations as diverse as slave communities, socialist groups in Paris, and workers on Wall Street. Divided into three parts, the book addresses the nature of cooperation, why it has become weak, and how it could be strengthened. The author warns that we must learn the craft of cooperation if we are to make our complex society prosper, yet he reassures us that we can do this, for the capacity for cooperation is embedded in human nature.

Business & Money

Economics

A reflection on the past and present of city life, and a bold proposal for its future\n“Constantly stimulating ideas from a veteran of urban thinking.”—Jonathan Meades, The Guardian\nIn this sweeping work, the preeminent sociologist Richard Sennett traces the anguished relation between how cities are built and how people live in them, from ancient Athens to twenty-first-century Shanghai. He shows how Paris, Barcelona, and New York City assumed their modern forms; rethinks the reputations of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, and others; and takes us on a tour of emblematic contemporary locations, from the backstreets of Medellín, Colombia, to Google headquarters in Manhattan.\nThrough it all, Sennett laments that the “closed city”—segregated, regimented, and controlled—has spread from the Global North to the exploding urban centers of the Global South. He argues instead for a flexible and dynamic “open city,” one that provides a better quality of life, that can adapt to climate change and challenge economic stagnation and racial separation.\nWith arguments that speak directly to our moment—a time when more humans live in urban spaces than ever before—Sennett forms a bold and original vision for the future of cities.

Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

The Performer: Art, Life, Politics

The fictional memoirs of Tibor Grau, a leading Marxist thinker, recounts his public and private lives from the early revolutionist period to the time of Stalin, detailing his official career, philosophical development, and homosexuality

The Frog Who Dared to Croak

Literature & Fiction

United States

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SENNETT, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by SENNETT, Richard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SENNETT, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Craftsman

The Craftsman

Thomas Struth: Strangers and Friends

Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation

The Craftsman

Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation

Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City

The Performer: Art, Life, Politics

The Performer: Art, Life, Politics

The Frog Who Dared to Croak