What Thoreau can teach us about working—why we do it, what it does to us, and how we can make it more meaningful

Henry at Work invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family’s pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions. And his ideas about work have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation, when many people are reconsidering what kind of working lives they want to have.

Through Thoreau, readers will discover a philosophy of work in the office, factory, lumber mill, and grocery store, and reflect on the rhythms of the workday, the joys and risks of resigning oneself to work, the dubious promises of labor-saving technology, and that most vital and eternal of philosophical questions, “How much do I get paid?” In ten chapters, including “Manual Work,” “Machine Work,” and “Meaningless Work,” this personal, urgent, practical, and compassionate book introduces readers to their new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau.

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This is philosophy as Thoreau would have recognized it: full of life. An inspiring book that will give you the succor you need to reconsider—and possibly change—the way you work.

"[An] astute study. . . . The speculation on what Thoreau would think about modern workplaces is plausible and well supported. . . making a strong case for the transcendentalist’s continued relevance. This should give workaholics pause." - Publishers Weekly

"It is finally time to move past the idea that Thoreau was a ponderous layabout whose solitary musings were only possible because of behind-the-scenes support staff (his family). . . . In a post-Covid moment when society is struggling to define the meaning and purpose of so much of what we call work, Thoreau’s 19th-century ideas about labor are both highly relevant and weirdly prescient." - Lit Hub