"First published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Circus, part of the Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020."--Title page verso

The economic problem -- In the beginning -- To live is to work -- Idle hands and busy beaks -- Tools and skills -- Fire's other gifts -- The provident environment -- "The original affluent society" -- Ghosts in the forest -- Toiling in the fields -- Leaping off the edge -- Feasts and famines -- Time is money -- The first machines -- Creatures of the city -- The bright lights -- the malady of infinite aspiration -- Top talent -- The death of a salaryman -- The new disease

"A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman"--