Book Review: 'Shop Class As Soulcraft'

 

Hyperbole stoked by enthusiasm can be tiresome and to an extent, abuses the listener/reader (e.g. "this is the best book I've read in 20 years"). I will try to keep it and my enthusiasm in check as I tell you about a book recently recommended to me by friend Jeff Lindberg.  The book in question is Shop Class As Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford.

I finished this a couple weeks ago. Not sure I've ever encountered a writer who so deftly synthesizes thoughts. He makes, in this unusual book, the case for a number of things: old-school shop class, the trades (both those which are repair-oriented as well as those which involve some kind of building), and any craft-work that involves the use of both hands and brain.

This book is a wholly revealing and refreshing look at the work we do and the great salve it is to our soul - when it engages the full person (hands and mind).

Here too, we see the folly of a denigration (that began in the late twentieth century) of the trades in favor of a presumption that a college pathway is for everyone. A presumption without regard to talents, inclinations or dispositions - and one that holds that it is the only savvy and respectable route for our children to take.

If you have an interest in this subject, you'll find sound thinking here and an author who thankfully doesn't much traffic in cliché.   \mf