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Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Evolution of Work
 
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Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Evolution of Work (Hardcover)

by Richard Donkin (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 374 pages
  • Publisher: Texere Publishing,US (13 Jun 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1587990768
  • ISBN-13: 978-1587990762
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 282,058 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #67 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Sociology > Sociology of Work > Work & Labour

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

For six years journalist Richard Donkin made the subject of work his own vocation, and in Blood, Sweat and Tears he places defining moments from its historical development into a cohesive and revealing perspective. Literally starting when humans first began perfecting recognisable employment skills, Donkin examines the critical touchstones that followed and the ways they fit together. Citing sources as disparate as The Dilbert Principle and Peter Drucker's The Future of Industrial Man, he addresses the impact of slavery, organised religion, the time clock, child labour, unionisation, the mid-20th-century workplace appropriations of the German and Japanese governments, women on the factory floor and in the boardroom and current management trends. While cautioning against the further interweaving of work into the "texture of our domestic existence", he notes that the transformation this is now driving is but the latest in an age-old process. "The concept of revolution", he concludes, "is wholly inadequate in describing the changes in the way we live and this thing we call work." --Howard Rothman


Scotland on Sunday Online, Sep 5, 2001

As we speed-read The Road Less Travelled...Richard Donkin's new book Blood, Sweat and Tears is another must-read.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Work harder dude, or you wont get paid!, 5 Aug 2001
By simon@metamute.com (City of London) - See all my reviews
Richard Donkin's Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Evolution of Work is a revealing genealogy of the inner workings of the corporate system. With its examination of work's histories in serfdom, slavery, forced and waged labour, this is a real page-turner for anyone with an interest in capitalism and/or globalisation. In the book's foreword, Warren Dennis of USC Business states that "one of the secret scandals of contemporary organisations is the ahistoricity of its managers"; by the end of Donkin's book you grasp why this may be no accident. Its historical examination of work is broad, starting with the use of rudimentary tools 2.5 million years ago and ending with present day management systems of single status workplaces such as the dot com. Throughout this mapping process, Donkin's primary project is an attempt to point to a day political program of 'social capitalism' (which one loosely interprets as something like The Third Way). Donkin's use of the evolutionary metaphor is thankfully not based on an upward curve of progress (which is a model he seeks to dispel), as much as on the principle of unremitting change. To illustrate structural sophistication, for example, he lifts one example from the work of the late archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. Here an apparently matriarchal, pan-European civilisation, which Gimbutas claimed flourished from 6500 to 3500BC, demonstrates the erstwhile primacy of anti-hierarchical organisations. It is one of many moments in the book where Dorkin refers to work that proved relevant to feminist practices being sidelined. The 'Protestant work ethic' and the manner in which this set of values has been transformed into present day capitalism is central to Blood, Sweat and Tears; closest to his heart though is the corporate adoption of a social agenda at a structural level (for example where management is shared among workers). However, he acknowledges that many of such practices have been cynically used to cut costs and, based on their past record, doesn't hold out for either the private or public sector delivering. Somewhere in this tug between profit and ethics sits a job description for what must be the toughest work ever...
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