A Craftsman's Legacy

A Craftsman's Legacy by Eric Gorges, 245 pages

In much of the developed world where work centers around computer screens, this is a refreshing examination of artisans who use their hands to make things. The book's chapters are theme-titled but several of them focus on a particular artisan and their craft: a potter, furniture maker, stone carver, glassblower, calligrapher, etc. The author's own biography is creatively interwoven throughout: he worked in the tech industry, developed mental health issues which were relieved as he became a motorcycle maker. Having experienced skilled mechanics and carpenters myself I've often thought that it takes as much smarts to be a good artisan as academic, business leader or politician and this book fed that conviction. I highly recommend it if you need a break, like I did, from disembodied concepts, ideas and screens. It is likely to increase your appreciation for artisans and to inspire you to rub your hands before heading toward a work of your own.

Collective Courage

Collective Courage: a history of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice  
by Jessica Gordon Nembhard, 311 pages.

Jessica Gordon Nembhard uncovers Black cooperative thought and practice in the United States: cooperation in farming, land, housing and grocery stores; these along with burial societies are the shared labor and economies that have been overlooked by historians but vibrant in the experience and oral traditions in many black communities. Collective economic organizing has contributed to the survival and prosperity of African Americans and their poor neighbors, but these have often been met with lynchings and death threats -- as in the case of the murdered owners of the Memphis grocery cooperative, and the accompanying death threat to Ida. B. Wells who left subsequently fled the city. Their collectiveity has been a courageous threat to the U.S. capitalistic economy that uses black labor and economic servitude to bolster profits. Rooted in collective experience, African Americans have also significantly contributed to visioning, theorizing and thinking about cooperative economies. And important book not only for history but also because black collective practices and theories are increasingly modifying, and may eventually help to replace, the present economic system.

Collective Courage

Collective Courage: a history of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice  by Jessica, 311 pages.

Nembhard reviews Black economic cooperation in farming, land, housing, grocery stores and; these and burial societies. These shared labor and economies have been overlooked by historians but have been crucial in the traditions, stories and experience of many black communities. Collective economic organizing has contributed to the survival and prosperity of African Americans but have often been met with local resistance, even death threats and lynchings -- as in the case of the murdered owners of the Memphis grocery cooperative, and the accompanying death threat to Ida. B. Wells who reported on the lynchings, was threatened and then fled the city to save her life. Black collectivity has been a courageous threat to the U.S. capitalistic economy that has otherwise used black labor and servitude to bolster profits. African Americans have also significantly contributed to visioning, theorizing and thinking about cooperative economies. Collective Courage is an important book not only for history but also because these collective practices and contemporary adaptations may eventually help to replace, the present exploitative economic system.

-- CraigSL