Brian Merchant is the bestselling author of THE ONE DEVICE and a senior editor of Motherboard, VICE's science and technology outlet. He is also the founder of Terraform, its online fiction outlet, and his work has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, VICE Magazine, Salon, Fast Company, Discovery, GOOD, Paste, Grist, and beyond.
"A historical tour de force."--CyberNews
"An excellent book that everyone should read."--DailyKos
"An eye-opening read... Merchant unspools a myth-busting historical
tale interwoven with pointed comparisons to how modern tech giants
are eroding workers' collective rights."--New Scientist
"Merchant's retelling of the Luddite cause is a gripping and
detailed romp."--Wired
"Blood in the Machine compares the labor struggles of the
Industrial Revolution to today's abusive gig economy.... Derived
from an immense trove of archival materials and secondary
historical sources, [Merchant] brings a journalist's touch to the
Luddites' travails, drawing connections between the conflicts and
indignities of their epoch and our own."--Gavin Mueller, New York
Times Book Review
"Stirring...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
"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
"This book is a welcome parable of worker solidarity and
resistance."--Booklist
"A well-argued linkage of early industrial and postindustrial
struggles for workers' rights."--Kirkus
"Engrossing and exhaustively researched"--The Culture
Journalist
"Brian Merchant has pulled off a kind of temporal magic trick: He's
told a two-century-old story with such resonant themes about
technology, labor and human exploitation--and done it with such
gripping, visceral detail and empathy--that it feels like it's
about our future."--Andy Greenberg, author of Sandworm and Tracers
in the Dark
"I've thrown around the word 'Luddite' often in my work, mainly as
a cheap insult, so Brian Merchant's rich and absorbing history of
the movement was, for me, both a revelation and an embarrassment.
The embarrassment is at how little I'd known about them, and how
the lessons I'd taken from their effort were based on a silly
caricature. The revelation, in Brian's deft telling, is that
technology never has to be inevitable, that we humans have agency
over how we live with the machines, and that perhaps the best way
to figure out what to do about the future is to look to the
past."--Farhad Manjoo, New York Times Opinion columnist
"A riveting look into the past, and a cautionary tale for our
rapidly approaching future.... Fast paced, engagingly written, and
exhaustively researched, this work of history could not feel more
relevant to the current moment. It's one of the best books I've
ever read."
--Kim Kelly, author of Fight Like Hell: The Untold Story of
American Labor
"An immersive, propulsive tale...an eye-opening history delivering
powerful lessons for our high-tech present."--Margaret O'Mara,
author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
"A rich and gripping account of a chronically misunderstood
historical chapter, one with urgent relevance to our own time, as
we once again pit humans against machines."--Naomi Klein, New York
Times Bestselling author of This Changes Everything
"Forget everything you know about the Luddites. After Blood in the
Machine you'll never look at your computer screen - or a hammer -
the same way again."--Malcolm Harris, bestselling author of Palo
Alto
"A thrilling history and a stirring manifesto for seizing the means
of production, or smashing it, when necessary. Automation has
always been about turning people into machines: brainless and
disposable. To be a Luddite is to demand a say in the future. It's
not enough to ask what a machine does - we have to ask who it does
it for and who it does it to."--Cory Doctorow, New York Times
bestselling author of Little Brother and The Internet Con
"This is an absolutely indispensable, shocking, and fascinating
tale by one of today's most important technology writers. This
riveting book is as much a work of history as it is an urgent
examination of our ability to resist the overwhelming changes
technology is wreaking on our lives. The Luddites knew that
automation, job loss and the consolidation of wealth aren't
inevitable. We can shape these forces if we're willing to break a
loom or two."--Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling
author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money
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