Description

‘Cottam is the humane revolutionary our turbulent century needs – and this book our roadmap to a better future’ JONATHAN FREEDLAND, author of THE ESCAPE ARTIST

‘Highly recommend – practical and full of human wisdom’ FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Brimming with ideas to transform the future’ KATE RAWORTH, author of DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS

Work, for decades, has been debated and discussed as a narrow economic category. Instead, Hilary Cottam identifies work as a cultural force at the heart of good lives, strong communities and a sense of a shared national destiny. Crucially, in these dramatic times, she shows how we can shape this force to meet technological change, our ecological crisis and the challenges of the world’s deep injustices. We can create a work revolution.

Ambitious but rooted in the ideas of everyday experts – real workers from all walks of life – this is a realistic and hopeful book. Hilary Cottam has crossed the UK and the USA; she’s spent time in communities considered by outsiders as ‘left behind’ and in places at the centre of financial and technological power. Drawing on a fascinating range of sources – historians, trade unionists, business leaders, philosophers and most originally, hours of her imaginative workshops with workers – Hilary Cottam boldly asks: how can we redesign work?

Our challenges – political, social, economic and environmental – are tangled and growing. But so are the imaginative solutions. In this exciting, inspiring and optimistic book, Hilary shows us how we could work differently and live better.

‘So valuable . . . Hilary Cottam proposes a bold new vision of what the principles underlying ‘good work’ might be’ MARIANA MAZZUCATO, UCL professor and author of MISSION ECONOMY

‘Timely . . . guides the changes needed’ CARLOTA PEREZ

‘Exposes what motivates workers today – not the things most business leaders think – and shows how new thinking would benefit us all. Compelling’ MARTHA LANE FOX

‘Urgent, compelling and ultimately hopeful . . . Necessary and Inspiring’ CAROLINE LUCAS, Green Party MP and author of ANOTHER ENGLAND

Publisher Review

Pushing us to rethink our most basic assumptions . . . Full of empathy, insight and courage . . . Cottam is the humane revolutionary our turbulent century needs – and this book our roadmap to a better future — Jonathan Freedland, author of THE ESCAPE ARTIST Brimming with ideas to transform the future, Hilary Cottam takes us on a fascinating journey to discover how to make work work — Kate Raworth, author of DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS An act of racial hope, radical listening and radical humility – Hilary Cottam challenges our most fundamental assumptions about our lives and society and most importantly, suggests how we can make things much better. I loved it — Rory Stewart Urgent, compelling and ultimately hopeful . . . Cottam demonstrates that a better future, based on reciprocity and mutual collaboration, is not only possible but its seeds are already here. Necessary and Inspiring — Caroline Lucas Exposes what motivates workers today – not the things most business leaders think – and shows how new thinking would benefit us all. Compelling — Martha Lane Fox Integrates life as imagined by workers themselves with a keen understanding of technological and economic change. An engrossing blueprint for change — Anne-Marie Slaughter One of the deepest thinkers on this subject — Colin Mayor, author of CAPITALISM AND CRISES Twenty-first century people cannot give their best if tied down to twentieth-century patterns of work. Hilary Cottam provides the roadmap for the required transformation. Timely . . . guides the changes needed — Carlota Perez