The book had it's great moments when equating the value of labor as a mechanic. It was also fun to tear at the societal beliefs that college is a must. However, I don't understand motorcycle repair (the setting of the book) and I felt the conclusions were vague.

Crawford is an iconoclast, a philosopher, and distinctly not an ideologue. He makes a provocative and delightful argument for the intellectual value of working with your hands to solve problems not in theory but in the real world of people and objects. The book is also perhaps surprisingly a very honest account of the author's own intellectual growth. This book will be satisfying to anyone who has passed through the halls of academia or the offices of K Street and seen the dishonesty of those who work too far removed from the messiness of the real world where theory or a neat statistical model just can't fix a proverbial motorbike. I hope Crawford keeps writing in this style. He is the kind of thinker Malcolm Gladwell wishes he could be.