An irreverent and ingenious celebration of the rebellious human spirit vs corporate technocracy
Matthew Crawford is the author of The Case for Working with Your Hands- Or Why Office Work Is Bad For Us and Fixing Things Feels Good and The World Beyond Your Head- How to Flourish in an Age of Distraction, which have been translated around the world. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Independent, Wall Street Journal as well as numerous magazines and journals. Matthew is a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, lectures internationally and runs a motorcyle repair shop.
One of the most original and mind-opening studies of practical
philosophy to have appeared for many years
*Unherd*
Persuasive and thought-provoking ... a vivid and heartfelt
manifesto against ...the loss of individual agency and the human
pleasure of acquired skill and calculated risk ... Not since Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has someone better
articulated the soul-enhancing possibilities of tinkering with
tools, making useful stuff work well ... a powerful (and enjoyable)
corrective against that wisdom that suggests the unchecked march of
all-seeing tech monopolies ... is essential to human progress
*Observer*
Matthew Crawford is the grand master of the everyday. He alerts us
to the deeper meaning in ordinary activities, such as driving a
car, and how they connect to concerns about freedom, responsibility
and moral choice. Even if you have no interest in driving you will
find yourself swept up by his elegant prose and glad to find his
humane intelligence doing battle with some of the most troubling
trends in modern life
*DAVID GOODHART, author of The Road to Somewhere*
Matthew Crawford is one of those who believes that western
societies are being blighted by what he terms safetyism, the
elevation of safety above all else. He argues that when the state
cocoons its citizens from dangers, people lose the elemental
pleasure, autonomy, mastery and sense of discovery that comes from
taking their own decisions and risks ... He makes the case for a
broader view of the purpose of life than simply the defence of it
... I am with Crawford
*The Times*
A pleasure to read ... His thesis demands that he convey the
pleasure of driving, and he's up to the task ... And he addresses
some huge, fascinating issues: how people retain self-respect when
computers are deskilling them, and sovereignty over their lives
when computers are spying on them. Much of modern life raises these
questions, but people's relationship with their cars perhaps best
exemplifies them ... an enjoyable, scenic cruise round a
fascinating landscape
*Sunday Times*
Crawford spreads his wings way beyond cars ... neither of the right
nor of the left, and certainly not of the centre ... this book is
about a freedom that is being lost to the cynics of surveillance
... a defence of the felt life against the intrusions of the
technocrats ... absorbing ... there is hope for the humans and the
gearheads
*New Statesman*
A biographical, philosophical inquiry that explores a fascinating
paradox: the whole allure of driving is freedom, but it's also
dangerous, so it has to be regulated ... The political and cultural
consensus in the 21st century is anti-car: it's unsafe, polluting,
selfish. Crawford turns some of these ideas upside down ... This is
a lovely book that applies history, philosophy and literature to
one obsessive subject ... a culture war over cars that pits town
against country, walkers against drivers and freedom against
order
*Telegraph*
Witty, open-minded and impossible to label as reactionary. As
public polymaths go - he's an engineer, physicist, philosopher,
sociologist, motorbike mechanic and a restorer of VW Beetles - he
leaves Jordan Peterson at the start line
*The Times*
Fascinating... Crawford, who is something of an American cultural
guru, never strays far from his main thesis, which is how these big
tech companies milk us of data, and see the car, so central to our
society, as crucial to their mission ... Crawford skilfully takes
us through the gears as he intelligently ... flies the flag for
individualism over dour corporative determinism
*Mail on Sunday*
Why We Drive is a deeply learned read. There are eye-opening quotes
and pensées on every page
*Tablet*
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