Work
A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots
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3.9 • 13 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
"This book is a tour de force." -- Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take
A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman
Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like?
To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same.
Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anthropologist Suzman (Affluence Without Abundance) attempts to untangle "the fundamental relationship between life, energy, order and entropy" in this thought-provoking yet uneven history. Drawing on the fields of economics, physics, evolutionary biology, and zoology to examine humanity's different approaches to work across time and cultures, Suzman is at his strongest in the early chapters, offering an intriguing look at how the Ju/'hoansi tribesmen of southern Africa and other foraging societies were shaped by their focus on the present, as opposed to farming societies, which focused on the future. Suzman also details how the new skills and professions humans developed when they began to form cities 8,000 years ago created hierarchies of wealth, status, and power, and contends that the scarcity of "intimate kinship and social ties" in urban communities (as opposed to rural communities) led people to "bind their social identity ever more tightly to the work they did." In modern economies, Suzman argues, automation threatens to exacerbate inequality. Though Suzman's writing is full of lively digressions and fine-grained details, the book loses focus and persuasiveness the further it moves from his areas of expertise. This ambitious account asks bigger questions than it can answer.
Customer Reviews
The worst book I’ve read in years
This book is all over the place. Those coming to learn about the history of work, like I did, will be sorely dissatisfied. Instead, you’ll find a collection of virtually unrelated anthropological anecdotes, which never present a cohesive vision. Could not wait to put this one down.