Amateur. The Art of Doing What You Love

Professionals are everywhere. Today, little happens without the involvement of a professional "expert" offering their specialized knowledge: scaling and evaluation, measurement and consulting, planning and organizing the lives of millions of people around the world. In his book, Andy Merrifield (b. 1960) contrasts the professional expert with an alternative image - the amateur, a person who thinks outside the box, takes risks, dreams of the impossible, strives for independence - and thereby changes the world. Through the example of such personalities as Charles Baudelaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Guy Debord, Hannah Arendt, and Jane Jacobs, Merrifield shows how one can challenge pedants, accountants, and formalists, and once again start enjoying what we do.