Doing Nothing

Couch potatoes goof-offs freeloaders good-for-nothings loafers and loungers: 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 own: 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.