Book

Lutz, Tom.

Doing nothing : a history of loafers, loungers, slackers and bums in America / Tom Lutz.

1st ed.

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

ix, 363 pages ; 24 cm

"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, a chorus of slackers has held the pretensions of hardworking respectability up to scorn. Reviled by many, heroic to others, these layabouts stretch and yawn their way through life and literature while the rest of society sweats. Their history is the history of labor in negative. From Benjamin Franklin's "air baths" to Jack Kerouac's dharma bums to Generation X slackers and beyond, the case studies in Doing Nothing prove that anti-work ethic proponents have held a central but underrecognized place in modern culture." "Tom Lutz illuminates the changing place of leisure in America and, in doing so, shows us idleness (and work) in a new light."--Jacket.

Slackers -- United States -- History.

Laziness -- United States -- History.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-354) and index.

Cody on the couch -- The idler and his works -- Loungers, romantics, and rip van winkle -- Loafers, communists, drinkers, and bohemians -- Nerve cases, saunterers, tramps, and flâneurs -- Sports, flappers, babbitts, and bums -- Beats, nonconformists, playboys, and delinquents -- Draft Dodgers, surfers, TV beatniks, and hippie communards -- Slackers.

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Table of contents

Table of contents

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

04

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

2005027230

0865476500

9780865476509

9780865477377

086547737X

0865476500

61864056

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0

1

652524

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174 Lutz