“The Amateur: The Pleasures of Doing What You Love” by Andy Merrifield
"A passionate attack on the tyranny of experts
Modern life is being destroyed by experts and professionals. We have lost our amateur spirit and need to rediscover the radical and liberating pleasure of doing things we love.
In The Amateur, thinker Andy Merrifield shows us how the many spheres of our livesâwork, knowledge, cities, politicsâhave fallen into the hands of box tickers, bean counters and rule followers. In response, he corrals a team of independent thinkers, wayward poets, dabblers and square pegs who challenge the accepted wisdom. Such figures as Charles Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Edward Said, Guy Debord, Hannah Arendt and Jane Jacobs show us the way. As we will see the amateur takes risks, thinks the unthinkable and seeks independenceâand changes the world.
The Amateur is a passionate manifesto for the liberated life, one that questions authority and reclaims the nonâteam player as a radical hero of our times."








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