Shadow Work (Open Forum Series) [Hardcover]

Ivan Illich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2000 | Series: Open Forum Series

In five essays, followed by extensive notes and bibliographies, Ivan Illich embarks on a major historical and sociological analysis of modern man's economic existence. He traces and analyzes options which surpass the conventional political 'right-left' and the technological 'soft-hard' alternatives and presents the concept of the 'vernacular' domain: "...to name those acts of competence, lust or concern that we want to defend from measurement by Chicago Boys or Socialist Commissars...the preparation of food and the shaping of language, childbirth and recreation, without implying either a privatized activity akin to the housework of modern women, a hobby or an irrational and primitive procedure." Illich deals provocatively with the controlling uses of language and science and the valuation of women and work. Drawing on unfamiliar historical sources, he lays bare the roots of much of the social ordering which affects industrial man: his own creation, but one which, at the same time, connives at his own oppression.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ivan Illich is the author of Celebration of Awareness, Tools for Conviviality, The Right to Useful Unemployment, Energy and Equity, Limits to Medicine, Shadow Work, Gender, H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness, ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind, Disabling Professions, Deschooling Society and In the Mirror of the Past: Lectures and Addresses 1978-1990. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 152 pages
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714527106
• ISBN-13: 978-0714527109
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,903,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural

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