The End of Work explores the "problem of labor" from a theological perspective. Addressing both theologians concerned with how Christianity might engage in social criticism, as well as secular philosophers and political theorists, this book explores the connection between Marxist and Radical Christian Romantic traditions.

Surveying twentieth-century theologies of work and contrasting various approaches to the topic, this book looks at the relationship between divine and human work, explores debates about labour under capitalism, and, through a thorough reading of Weber's Protestant Work Ethic, argues that the triumph of the "spirit of utility" is crucial to understanding modern notions of work. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Romantic and Catholic writers are then drawn upon to resist this with an alternative theo-aesthetic vision of the redemption of work as ultimately liturgical.

John Hughes was born in Sutton Coldfield in the English Midlands. He studied music at Royal Holloway College and has lived in Surrey for most of his adult life. He has earned a living in a variety of ways - selling pianos in Harrods, playing keyboards in a tribute band, as a magazine editor, in recruitment and most recently "managing" in the NHS. He has written half a dozen non-fiction books and Living with Jo is his third published novel. He has also written a collection of short stories - How to Steal a Piano. John Hughes has produced and directed films and written screenplays, with Home Alone, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Beuller's Day Off to his credit - but that's a different John Hughes.