If you are new to this serial story, you can find the Introduction here. Like any serial, each episode builds on what has gone before, so if you find yourself confusing your labor with yourContinue reading
Tag: history of work
The Story of Work 6: Aquinas and High Medieval Christianity
If you are new to this serial story, you can find the Introduction here. Like any serial, each episode builds on what has gone before, so if you find yourself confusing your labor with yourContinue reading
The Story of Work 5. Work and the Early Christians 2: Time Discipline and St Benedict
This post, episode 4 of the story of work, sets out the basis for that time discipline that will become central to twentieth-century management advice. Even if we aren’t Christian, Benedict’s Rule is still fundamentalContinue reading
The Story of Work 3. Work and the Romans
What is Work? Here we move on from the Greeks to the answers the Romans gave to the question of what ‘work’ is. While it has been a commonplace to regard the Romans as mereContinue reading
The Story of Work 4. Work, and the Early Christians: the New Testament and Augustine
What is work? Having sketched the Roman views of work that were most influential on subsequent philosophers, we continue the Story of Work by moving on to Christianity. We see how Roman thinking was modifiedContinue reading
The Story of Work 2. Work and the Ancient Greeks
What is ‘work’? This is the first post where I try to answer the question by looking at the long and very varied history of the concept, starting from the ancient Greeks. So working wasContinue reading