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What does it mean to carry out "good
work"? What strategies allow us to maintain moral and
ethical standards at a time when market forces have unprecedented
power and work life is being radically altered by technological
innovation? These questions are situated at the heart of
this eagerly anticipated new book. Focusing on genetics
and journalism -- two fields that generate and manipulate
information and thus affect our lives in myriad ways --
the authors show how successful professionals, in their
quest to build meaningful careers, exhibit "humane
creativity" -- high-level performance coupled with
social responsibility. Over the last three years the authors
have interviewed more than one hundred people in each field
who are engaged in cutting edge work. Probing goals and
visions, obstacles and fears, and means of passing on their
most cherished practices and values, the authors found sharp
contrasts between individuals from the two fields. Until
now, geneticists' values have not been seriously challenged
by the demands of their work world, while journalists are
deeply disillusioned by the conflict between commerce and
ethics. The dilemmas these professionals face and the strategies
they choose in their search for a moral compass offer valuable
guidance on how all people can transform their professions
and their lives. Illustrated with numerous stories of real
people facing hard decisions, Good Work offers powerful
insight into one of the most important issues of our time
and, indeed, into the future course of science, technology,
and communication.
Howard Gardner is Hobbs Professor of
Cognition and Education, Chairman of the Steering Committee
of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education,
and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Boston University
School of Medicine. He is the author of eighteen books,
including Frames of Mind, Creating Minds,
Leading Minds, Multiple Intelligences and Intelligence
Reframed. He has been honored with the MacArthur "Genius"
award, the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award and
eighteen honorary doctorates. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "CHICK-sent-me-high")
is currently Professor at the Drucker School of Management
at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California
and former Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychology
at the University of Chicago. His previous books include
the bestselling Flow,
Being Adolescent,
The Evolving Self,
Creativity,
Finding Flow
and Becoming Adult.
He is a member of the National Academy of Education, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy
of Leisure Sciences. He lives in Claremont, California.
William Damon is Professor of Education
and Director of the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University.
For the past twenty years, Damon has written widely on moral
development at all ages of human life. His books include
Self-Understanding in Childhood
and Adolescence, The
Moral Child, Some
Do Care, and most recently, The
Youth Charter. Damon has received
awards from many foundations, including the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The John Templeton
Foundation. He lives in Palo Alto, California.
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