The true story of what happened the first time machines came for human jobs, when an underground network of 19th century rebels, the Luddites, took up arms against the industrialists that were automating their work—and how it explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech today.
The most pressing story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley, Seattle, or even Shenzhen. It begins two hundred years ago in rural England, when working men and women rose up en masse rather than starve at the hands of the factory owners who were using machines to erase and degrade their livelihoods.
They organized guerilla raids, smashed those machines, and embarked on full-scale assaults against the wealthy machine owners. They won the support of Lord Byron, inspired Mary Shelley, and enraged the Prince Regent and his bloodthirsty government. Before it was over, much blood would be spilled—of rich and poor, of …
The true story of what happened the first time machines came for human jobs, when an underground network of 19th century rebels, the Luddites, took up arms against the industrialists that were automating their work—and how it explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech today.
The most pressing story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley, Seattle, or even Shenzhen. It begins two hundred years ago in rural England, when working men and women rose up en masse rather than starve at the hands of the factory owners who were using machines to erase and degrade their livelihoods.
They organized guerilla raids, smashed those machines, and embarked on full-scale assaults against the wealthy machine owners. They won the support of Lord Byron, inspired Mary Shelley, and enraged the Prince Regent and his bloodthirsty government. Before it was over, much blood would be spilled—of rich and poor, of the invisible and of the powerful. This all-but-forgotten and deeply misunderstood class struggle nearly brought 19th century England to its knees.
We live now in the second machine age, when similar fears that big tech is dominating our lives and machines replacing human labor run high. We worry that technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are ousting workers from factories, and artificial intelligence will soon remove drivers from cars. How will this all reshape our economy and the way we live? And what can we do about it?
The answers lie in the story of our first machine age, when mechanization first came to British factories at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Intertwined with a lucid examination of our current age, the story of the Luddites, the working-class insurgency that took up arms against automation (at a time when it was punishable by death to break a machine), Blood in the Machine reaches through time and space to tell a story about how technology changed our world—and how it's already changing our future.
Fascinating and informative. Highly recommended if you’re curious in the origins of workers rights, unions, uprisings, etc. Does a great job of putting into focus the often ambiguous specter of the machinations that the titans of industry/big tech/etc as they wage war against the work class in the name of higher profit margins.
It does help put into context many references towards the Luddites I’ve encountered in fiction recently, most notably in Babel. I also have a new appreciation for Frankenstein that I’ve somehow missed out on in all of my counter culture exposure.
I likely need a cool down period since I am even more outraged than normal at every injustice I’ve encountered since starting this book. And let’s face it, it’s hard to turn around without being confronted by injustice.
This is an incredibly well-researched and masterfully written book on the history of the Luddites and the first unscrupulous tech titans of the 19th century. Highly recommended read.
This book has two components, the retelling of the original Luddites and commentary on current events of Silicon Valley taking jobs. The Luddite portions are five star and wonderful. The commentary isn’t bad, but isn’t particularly insightful either.
A vividly told narrative of the Luddite uprisings of the early 19th Century. Brian Merchant expertly connects the struggles of textile workers then with workers of every stripe today whose jobs are continually under threat by the bosses using the smokescreen of technology.
there wa sa lot of praise for this book and it is very up my alley, but I didn't engage as much as I wanted iwth the through line argument. still a solid read though
