num_pages: 384
description: Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, good-for-nothings, loafers, and ever since the Industrial Revolution, when the work ethic as we know it was formed, there has been a chorus of slackers ridiculing and lampooning the pretensions of hardworking respectability. Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their "To do nothing," as Oscar Wilde said, "is the most difficult thing in the world." Moving with verve and wit through a series of case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself.
language: English
title: Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America
titlecomplete: Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America
genres: History, Philosophy, Criticism, Sociology, American History, Research, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 244
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: American Book Award
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux