The Craftsman

Provocative and enlightening, Richard Sennett's The Craftsman is an exploration of craftsmanship - the desire to do a job well for its own sake - as a template for living.

Most of us have to work. But is work just a means to an end? In trying to make a living, have we lost touch with the idea of making things well?

Pure competition, Sennett shows, will never produce good work. Instead, the values of the craftsman, whether in a Stradivari violin workshop or a modern laborat ...