The Amateur
The Pleasures of Doing What You Love
Published on 23. May 2017
240 pages
978-1-78663-108-4 (ISBN)
Description
Modern life is being destroyed by experts and professionals. We have lost our amateur spirit and need to rediscover the radical and liberating pleasure of doing things we love.
In The Amateur, thinker Andy Merrifield shows us how the many spheres of our lives-work, knowledge, cities, politics-have fallen into the hands of box tickers, bean counters and rule followers. In response, he corrals a team of independent thinkers, wayward poets, dabblers and square pegs who challenge the accepted wisdom. Such figures as Charles Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Edward Said, Guy Debord, Hannah Arendt and Jane Jacobs show us the way. As we will see the amateur takes risks, thinks the unthinkable and seeks independence-and changes the world.
In The Amateur, thinker Andy Merrifield shows us how the many spheres of our lives-work, knowledge, cities, politics-have fallen into the hands of box tickers, bean counters and rule followers. In response, he corrals a team of independent thinkers, wayward poets, dabblers and square pegs who challenge the accepted wisdom. Such figures as Charles Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Edward Said, Guy Debord, Hannah Arendt and Jane Jacobs show us the way. As we will see the amateur takes risks, thinks the unthinkable and seeks independence-and changes the world.
More details
Edition
Ebook UK & RoW
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Reflowable
ISBN-13
978-1-78663-108-4 (9781786631084)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2018
Verso Books
€13.00
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Book
05/2017
Verso Books
€38.59
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Person
Andy Merrifield is the author of nine books. His many articles, essays and reviews have appeared in the Nation, Harper's, Adbusters, New Left Review, Dissent, the Brooklyn Rail, and Radical Philosophy. He has more than twenty-years' experience teaching and writing about urbanism and social theory. He has also published three intellectual biographies on Henri Lefebvre, Guy Debord and John Berger, as well as a popular existential travelogue, The Wisdom of Donkeys. Merrifield is a contributing editor of Adbusters, an associate editor of CITY, and a regular speaker at scholarly, literary and political events on and off campus.
Content
- Intro
- Halftitle Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface: Feeling 'More Alive'
- 1. Professionals and Amateurs
- 2. A Question of Faith
- 3. The Measure of Knowledge
- 4. City of Amateurs
- 5. Work in the Crystal Palace
- 6. Professional Democracy
- 7. The Genius of Curiosity
- 8. Hobby-Horse
- 9. The Amateur Revolution
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
