What Thoreau can teach us about working—why we do it, what it does to us, and how we can make it more meaningful
Henry at Work invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family’s pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions. And his ideas about work have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation, when many people are reconsidering what kind of working lives they want to have.
Through Thoreau, readers will discover a philosophy of work in the office, factory, lumber mill, and grocery store, and reflect on the rhythms of the workday, the joys and risks of resigning oneself to work, the dubious promises of labor-saving technology, and that most vital and eternal of philosophical questions, “How much do I get paid?” In ten chapters, including “Manual Work,” “Machine Work,” and “Meaningless Work,” this personal, urgent, practical, and compassionate book introduces readers to their new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau.
"In this book, John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle illuminate an underexplored aspect of worked-over cultural icon Henry David Thoreau and what his thinking has to tell us about the way we work now. Henry at Work overturns the popular perception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse, scornful of work and other mundanities. Just the opposite, they argue, Thoreau worked hard and thought intensely about work: why we do it, what we hope to gain from it, and what it does to us. They aim to show readers not only Thoreau the writer and philosopher, but also the lesser-known Thoreau: Thoreau the worker, economist, and even the efficiency expert"--
"Think of anything having to do with your job and [Kaag and van Belle] will find something for you in Thoreau that fits like a glove."
---Costica Bradatan, Times Literary Supplement
