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The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
by Brian Merchant
The "rich and gripping" true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today (Naomi Klein)
The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods.
The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees.
Today, technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are crowding factory floors, and artificial intelligence will soon pervade every aspect of our economy. How will this change the way we live? And what can we do about it?
The answers lie in Blood in the Machine. Brian Merchant intertwines a lucid examination of our current age with the story of the Luddites, showing how automation changed our world—and is shaping our future.
"A well-argued linkage of early industrial and postindustrial struggles for workers' rights." ―Kirkus Reviews
"This is a significant contribution to the history of the Industrial Revolution and a strong warning against complacency in the face of technological change." ―Publishers Weekly
"This book is a welcome parable of worker solidarity and resistance." ―Booklist
"Brian Merchant's new book...is phenomenal. It is both a rousing, meticulously-researched history and an insightful, timely argument about the present state of technology. It's one of those books that sticks with you...You should buy it. You should read it." ―"The Future, Now and Then" Newsletter
"Engrossing and exhaustively researched" ―The Culture Journalist
This information about Blood in the Machine was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brian Merchant is the technology columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the national bestseller The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. He's the co-founder of Terraform, Vice's science fiction outlet, and the founder of Gizmodo's Automaton project examining AI and the future of work. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Fast Company, and beyond. He lives in Los Angeles.
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