Nilesh Jasani's Reviews > Work: A History of How we spend our Time

Work is too unfocused.

Many books have extensive scopes, but good books of this genre either have some original viewpoints or engaging styles while staying focussed on macro arguments. They do not bog down on needless details and attempt to discuss over-arching trends that spawn millions of years or billions of people.

On the other hand, Work aims to cover vast stretches of human history through short essay-length chapters on what appears like randomly selected topics. The author has to try hard to somehow link everything to the word he uses in the title, but he could have equally covered "work" at the Big Bang explosion, "work" done for the Great Wall, or "work" done by soldiers in wars or the painters or the housewives as topics. The point is the thread connecting the chapters is thin and with enormous gaps in between.

It does not help that almost every chapter is based on commonly available, well-discussed material on those subject matters. Chapters are too brief to throw light on nuances (dearly needed in highly biased, subjective later chapters) and too quick to make any lasting impact.