Shop Class as Soulcraft Audiobook By Matthew B. Crawford cover art

Shop Class as Soulcraft

An Inquiry into the Value of Work

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Shop Class as Soulcraft

By: Matthew B. Crawford
Narrated by: Max Bloomquist
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About this listen

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

Called "the sleeper hit of the publishing season" by The Boston Globe, Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant best seller, attracting fans with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.

©2009 Matthew B. Crawford (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Aesthetics Career Success Social Sciences Sociology Employment Career Thought-Provoking Business
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Critic reviews

"It's appropriate that [Shop Class as Soulcraft] arrives in May, the month when college seniors commence real life. Skip Dr. Seuss, or a tie from Vineyard Vines, and give them a copy for graduation.... It's not an insult to say that Shop Class is the best self-help book that I've ever read. Almost all works in the genre skip the 'self' part and jump straight to the 'help.' Crawford rightly asks whether today's cubicle dweller even has a respectable self.... It's kind of like Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." (Slate)

"Matt Crawford's remarkable book on the morality and metaphysics of the repairman looks into the reality of practical activity. It is a superb combination of testimony and reflection, and you can't put it down." (Harvey Mansfield, professor of government, Harvard University)

"Every once in a great while, a book will come along that's brilliant and true and perfect for its time. Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft is that kind of book, a prophetic and searching examination of what we've lost by ceasing to work with our hands - and how we can get it back. During this time of cultural anxiety and reckoning, when the conventional wisdom that has long driven our wealthy, sophisticated culture is foundering amid an economic and spiritual tempest, Crawford's liberating volume appears like a lifeboat on the horizon." (Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots)

What listeners say about Shop Class as Soulcraft

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a worthwhile read multiple times over

I've listened to this book 2-3 times and have been educated, validated, and entertained by it. I also find it very relatable in that I also have a college degree, but have chosen to work a trade as a painting contractor. So not only do I get to work with my hands and see the results of my work, I get to listen to audiobooks while I do it!

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6 people found this helpful

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Could have been a short story

I couldn’t finish the book. Lost interest half way through as most of the chapters felt repetitive to some. Stories dragged on. All this said it was interesting in the beginning.

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Quite an analysis and deconstruction of modern management

While this is an interesting dissertation on the nature and goals of modern management and how it has enabled the destruction of craftsmanship, it really fails to directly instill any sense of “get into your shop and do stuff” like a book from Nick Offerman or Adam Savage.

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1 person found this helpful

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Really enjoyed this

This book has caused me to reflect on how I approach my daily work and how I raise my kids. I’m generally pretty handy and do a lot of my own house projects which has rolled over to my kids. I’ve always struggled at depth though. I’m just good enough to do damage. But my knowledge and skill is only a few steps deep and not to a level of mastery outside of my work. I would love to instill a love of tools and self-reliance that this book preaches. Glad I found it.

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Old paths were the best

A great narration of an excellent book. Should be required reading for parents, teachers, and anyone who helps guide young people into adult life.

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Had high hopes

Was this book well written? Yes. Is it better than much of the trash out there? Yes! Is it worth your credit? Not so fast. Clearly the author put a ton of work into this book. Unfortunately, it was too linear for my liking. I didn't find the wisdom that some of the other reviewers referred to. Wouldn't be my go-to title for this subject. I will have to put this one back on the shelf.

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2 people found this helpful

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Hands and brain: a matching set

A very good reasoning on how our education system, in its zeal to accredit the masses (in unwitting league with corporate America and its need for “Knowledge Workers”), has taken away the legitimacy of people having a career based on working with their minds through the use of their hands to repair and create.
Takeaway: Deal not in ambiguous abstractions of life; get your hands dirty

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7 people found this helpful

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Brilliant

Brilliant and inspiring, should be required reading freshman year in High School and we would not have a student loan crisis.

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Great historical & personal perspective on work

I've read/listened to this book twice in my life now many years apart, and like many great books its provided insight and wisdom to me both times in different ways.
From a macro perspective, Crawford's book provides an overview of the change in the nature of work that has occurred over the past 120 years or so, since the advent of industrialization and the assembly line. He overlays this with his own life experiences as a man who always enjoyed working with his hands, but fell (like me and many others) for the academic lie that knowledge work is superior to more concrete work like a physical trade.
The two biggest things I got out of this book are both Crawford's personal journey and lessons he learned transitioning from a knowledge job (copyediting/writing?) to a physical trade/small business owner (motorcycle repair), as well as the background to how America (and the world) went from guilds of craftsmen with lifelong experience, standards and knowledge of the physical world to those who give up all experiential knowledge to become cogs in a factory line. This transition from overall broad knowledge gained from making mistakes in the physical world to one where all employees are "generalists" with only the knowledge to follow pre-fab directions is a great insight into the work of today and how it differs from the rest of human history, and why so many struggle to find meaning in their work.
The book is not long, but it doesn't waste your time either. You could also skip a couple of the chapters about opening his motorcycle shop, as they are mostly personal anecdote, but I found he was selective enough that most of the anecdotes serve a broader point about the nature of work or the value of struggle and mistake, so I didn't mind it.
Give this as a gift to every young man in your life who is being told he should go to college instead of a trade, or who isn't doing well in traditional school. I think it would benefit them a lot.

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Still hits home on the 3rd read.

Would love an update taking into account count technical automation, machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence .

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