Matthew B. Crawford, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, a fabricator of components for custom motorcycles, and the author of the surprise bestseller Shop Class as Soulcraft, has written a new book that is unlikely to fly off the shelves. The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) is an ultimately disappointing attempt to create a philosophy of engagement, modeled in large part on the craftsman’s interaction with the world.