Patricia Ranft, Professor of History, emerita, at Central Michigan University, deepens our modern understanding of work by taking us back to its medieval origins in The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the Medieval Religious Renewal Movement. Historians have traditionally located an emerging theory of work in the 19th and 20th centuries, but Ranft’s engaging study turns back the time clock to show that medieval society established the framework from which modern ideas on work have grown. Ranft regards the religion and labor debate begins in the 11th century world …