Sneaky Thinking: Glenn Adamson’s “The Invention of Craft”
Glenn Adamson’s new book of craft theory, “The Invention of Craft,” purports to be a revisionist history about the origins of contemporary craft. Presumably, he intends to upset the familiar story of craft under the threat of industrialization, with Ruskin providing the theory and Morris providing the practice. He proposes a new story, in which craft was never under threat after all, and all that heavy breathing about craft preserving old ways of making is a foolish fiction.