Pandaemonium: The Coming of the Machine As Seen by Contemporary Observers

by Humphrey Jennings, Charles Madge (Editor)

This collection of writings is about the Industrial Revolution. The extracts are taken from diaries, letters, scientific reports and literature. Each piece sheds light on those that come before and after, as it measures how the human imagination experienced the Industrial Revolution.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Technology, Anthropology, British Literature, Artificial Intelligence, Read For School

416 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1985

About the author

Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 1954 as "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced."

Reviews

[James Calbraith · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no better way to study history - even for an amateur historian - than by reading source material, and this book is a fantastic collection of first-hand reports from one of the most fascinating eras of world's history; a rare treat, since most of the literature we have from that period is escapist "gothic" prose or "idyllic" poetry, leaving us with an impression of an unsuspecting world accepting the sudden onset of industrial revolution without so much as batting an eyelid.

Brilliantly assembled by the multi-talented Humphrey Jennnings - who not only does not hide his socialist leanings, but goes out of the way to show them throughout the anthology (coming as he is from a time when "Socialism" was not a dirty word) - Pandaemonium, through snippets of letters, diaries, press reports and poems, shows, first and foremost, how little we have changed as humanity in the last two-three hundred years, and how many of our most crucial and current debates and arguments: capital vs society, greed vs compassion, liberals vs conservatives, atheists vs theists, science vs humanities - are at least as old as the first steam weaving machine, and the first microscope image; and how far, still, we are from solving any of these dilemmas.

Of particular personal interest to me were the many images of a growing, sprawling London - an ascending capital of the world; anyone who's lived in the city for even a short time, will undoubtedly find the love-hate filled images exhilarating and familiar.

Finally, for any steampunk writer worth their salt, it is a treasure trove of inspirations.

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There should be more books like this. The concept of arranging text as montage is a fantastic one, with texts reflecting, refracting and contradicting each other, creating a kaleidoscope of meaning. As Humphrey Jennings’ introduction says, ‘

It’s not an open and free play of imagination though, Jennings’ own intent and interpretation almost overwhelm the reader’s. Jennings has a definite story he wishes to tell, one of relatively free, animistic peasants being overwhelmed by the forces of industry, buckled under the yoke of middle-classes and forced into being the working class.

Having read a lot about the Lunar Men, particularly Erasmus Darwin and a number of very positive histories of the Enlightenment, the inherent criticism of the machine age came as a surprise. It shouldn’t have been though, because as a teen I was very much of the opinion that rationalism and the industrial revolution was not just the death of superstition but the death of magic and wonder as well.

One of the greatest surprises was the accompanying religious revolution. I was aware of Wesley, Whitefield and other religious reformers of the era and that such religious movements were a response to the enlightenment and mechanical modes of thinking. What I hadn’t considered was the class issue, that such movements were a bourgeoise-ification of religion.

I was delighted to see Goldsmith, Johnson and Kit Smart being used. Jennings, compiling his pieces in the 30s, passes on the false information that Jubilate Agno was written in Bedlam, but he does have an interesting interpretation of it.

The clear Marxist ideology weighted the book down. I have no problem with Marxism in itself, but all the Marxists I have ever read or met, are incredibly boring people. Everything is boiled down into a war of class - and the many strands of the industrial revolution have more to them then merely class war.

There’s also the fact that Jennings seems to ignore the fact that peasants were terribly oppressed in times before the industrial revolution - serfs were banned from travelling, people starved without even an attempt at poor relief. The problem with the industrial revolution seems less to do with intentional exploitation and more to do with being unable to keep up with new developments. Not that the scientists are evil but that the ideas of scientists outpace sociological ones.

This was in no way a bad book, but it grew to be a tiresome one and I was pleased when I finished it. A book finer in intention than execution.

[Gavin]

'The presence of Imagination is apprehended by the Imagination : therefore the reasons for choice are not reasonable.' There is no call, then, to try to rationalize his method of selection [of these passages].

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is worth the time required to read it. The rather dry study of the industrial revolution of my school days would have benefitted from this. The value for me comes from the combination of the eye witness accounts with the fictional passages and the diaries of scientists and engineers as we forged our way into a new life. This is also the birth of the working class and sounds resonantly for me right now as we consider how we continue to struggle for equality and fairness in the distribution of wealth in this country.

[Liam Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compedium of primary sources from the industrial revolution. It has a marxist subtext, ocassionally just "text," namely towards a depiction of industrial development as a violent evil force.

1830: The Black Country is anything but picturesque. The earth seems to have been turned inside out. Its entrails are strewn about; nearly the entire surface of the ground is covered with cinder-heaps and mounds of scoriae. The coal, which has been drawn from below ground, is blazing on the surface. The district is crowded with iron furnaces, puddling furnaces and coal-pit engine furnaces. By day and by night the country is glowing with fire, and the smoke of the ironworks hovers over it. There is a rumbling and clanking of iron forges and rolling mills. Workmen covered with smut, and with fierce white eyes, are seen moving about amongst the glowing iron and dull thud of forge-hammers p.171

Whereas, beginning with the early 18th century, the book depicts a generally wholesome peasant landscape. Here, a man visits a typical miner's home:

1725:To find out whence this appearance of Substance came, I asked the poor Woman, what Trade her Husband was? She said, he worked in the Lead Mines. I asked her, how much he could earn in a Day there? she said, if he had good luck he could earn about five pence a Day, but that he worked by the Dish (which was a Term of Art I did not understand, but supposed, as I afterwards understood it was, by the Great, in proportion to the Oar, which they measure in a wooden Bowl, which they call a Dish). I then asked, what she did? She said, when she was able to work she washed the Oar: But, looking down on her Children, and shaking her Head, she intimated, that they found her so much Business she could do but little, which I easily granted must be true. But what can you get at washing the Oar, said I, when you can work? She said, if she work'd hard she could gain Three-pence a Day. So that, in short, here was but Eight-pence a Day when they both worked hard, and that not always, and perhaps not often, and all this to maintain a Man, his Wife, and five small Children, and yet they seemed to live very pleasantly, the Children look'd plump and fat, ruddy and wholesome; and the Woman was tall, well shaped, clean, and (for the Place) a very well looking, comely Woman; nor was there any thing look'd like the Dirt and Nastiness of the miserable Cottages of the Poor; tho' many of them spend more Money on strong Drink than this poor Woman had to maintain five Children with. p. 33

Jenning's commentaries on the texts, when they appear, are not always clear or reliable, which is a pity since there is already dificulty in extracting the intention behind the selection of each excerpt.

In this example, an excerpt from Boswell's biography of Dr. Johnson, Jennings (final paragraph) seems to miss the point. Johnson is not in fact giving a name to the peasantry but rather, snobbishly, pointing to the absurdity of a hypothetical "philosophical daylabourer," equally as absurd as a hypothetical "merchant of enlarged mind" and indeed equally as absurd as any such supposition. Funnily enough, this amounts to an unwitting criticism of communism, well before its time.

1773: At breakfast, I asked, 'What is the reason that we are angry at a trader's
having opulence?'

JOHNSON:'Why, sir, the reason is, (though I don't
undertake to prove that there is a reason,) we see no qualities in trade that should entitle a man to superiority. We are not angry at a soldier's getting riches, because we see that he possesses qualities which we have not. If a man returns from a battle, having lost one hand, and with the other full of gold, we feel that he deserves the gold; but we cannot think that a fellow, by sitting all day at a desk, is entitled to get above us.'

BOSWELL: 'But, sir, may we not suppose a merchant to be a man of an enlarged mind, such as Addison in the Spectator describes Sir Andrew Freeport to have been?'

JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, we may suppose any fictitious character. We may suppose a philosophical day-labourer, who is happy in reflecting that, by his labour, he contributes to the fertility of the earth, and to the support of his fellow-creatures; but we find no such philosophical day-labourer. A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind; but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.'

In [exercept] 63, the purely literary critic Johnson compares economic man (existing by trade) with the feudal soldier. 'Philosophic day-labourer' is Johnson's name for the peasant. Boswell takes it all a step further by arguing that the manufacturer has in fact purely feudal relations with his employees p.71-73

And here, an outright mixup, where Jennings refers to an excerpt written by a certain "Walter White":

Walter White appears to have visited Haworth in the summer of1857 and from his account it is clear that there was already quite a 'vast', i.e. a crowd of visitors on account of the Brontës' writings. In many ways the two accounts of the same journey are extraordinarily similar p.279

...but in fact the excerpt concerns a working class hymn with interesting railroad metaphors, not anything to do with Bronte, and does not concern any "journey." The following extract that this commentary sits under, which may have been intended to be referenced, only describes a journey" yet only in terms of distances from other places. No crowds at all.




Often, the commentaries, similar to notes jotted in the margins of a unversity book, rankle with their effrontery. As in this example, where Jennings opines on a description of an industrial explosion, Jennings bravely states that the common sense notion that "accidents will happen" is a "Calvinist" kind of fatalism:

1812: About half past eleven o'clock in the morning of the 25th May, 1812, the neighbouring villages were alarmed by a tremendous explosion in this colliery. The subterraneous fire broke forth with two heavy discharges from the John Pit, which were, almost instantaneously, followed by one from the William Pit. A slight trembling, as from an earthquake, was felt for about half a mile around the workings; and the noise of the explosion, though dull, was heard to three or four miles distance, and much resembled an unsteady fire of infantry.

It was this disaster that ultimately led Sir Humphry Davy to invent his Safety Lamp. But it was more important than that. In the fantastic symphony of the Industrial Revolution from the beginnings up to today - yes, today - the dull subterranean explosions of the great and horrible pit disasters return (precisely like the periodic activities of a volcano) like a Fate theme, like reminders from the unconscious (as in dreams) of this work that goes on, out of sight, night and day. Yet these 'accidents' are unnecessary, and the idea that they are due to 'Fate' is a conception à la Calvin to depress the people. p.132-134

Here, Jennings confused me by first saying that a scientific experiment is repeatable "as a poem", but then criticising science for being, unlike poetry, centred on objects and not on people. He says that, such as in one of his excerpts, the original experiment "often" includes mention of human beings (the partcipants) but that such fade out as the course of scientific investigation becomes increasingly deepened. This all seems explicable to me: the writings reached a common audience of readers who developed a more laser-like focus on their objectives. Why are these things stated so sinisterly? Are we meant to conclude from all this that science, in the abstract, is a force which erodes humanity?:

1783:This classic discovery-experiment [James Watt - "The Composition of Air" is an example of the repeatable, as a poem or piece of music is a recipe for a repeatable performance. Most scientific work is incompatible with poetic expression for one simple reason, that our interest in poetry does not lie in things, discoveries, inventions, formulae themselves but in their effect on people. In only a few pieces of purely scientific notation are the people visible - often as here in the first account, in the first experiment, they are. Automatic notation -avoiding people, as in mathematics - and supposedly - 'Photogenic Drawing' - avoiding passing through the medium of a human being. p. 79

The last sentence refers to the discovery of photography, of which Jennings also includes an illustrative excerpt. I find it curious to think in which kind of dark shade the contents of the passage crossed Jennings's critical mind:

1835:Not having with me in the country a camera obscura of any considerable size, I constructed one out of a large box, the image being thrown upon it by a good object glass fixed in the opposite end. This apparatus being armed with a sensitive paper, was taken out in a summer afternoon and placed about a hundred yards from a building favourably illuminated by the sun. An hour or two afterwards I opened the box, and I found depicted on the paper a very distinct representation of the building, with the exception of those parts of it which lay in the shade. A little experience in this branch of the art showed me that with smaller camerae obscurae the effect would be produced in a smaller time. Accordingly I had several small boxes made, in which I fixed lenses of shorter focus, and with these I obtained very perfect but extremely small pictures; such as without great stretch of imagination might be supposed to be the work of some Lilliputian artist. They require indeed examination with a lens to discover all their minutiae p. 195

But regardless of the work's highest intentions, the details throughout the book are fascinating and, like with the above, Jennings finds numerous passages which collaged create a vivid picture of their era, including this exciting account of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester:

1819: On the cavalry drawing up they were received with a shout of good-will, as I understood it. They shouted again, waving their sabres over their heads ; and then, slackening rein, and striking spur into their steeds, they dashed forward and began cutting the people.

'Stand fast,' I said, 'they are riding upon us; stand fast.' And there was a general cry in our quarter of 'Stand fast.' The cavalry were in confusion: they evidently could not, with all the weight of man and horse, penetrate that compact mass of human beings; and their sabres were plied to hew a way through naked held-up hands and defenceless heads; and then chopped limbs and wound-gaping skulls were seen; and groans and cries were mingled with the din of that horrid confusion. 'Ah! Ah!' 'for shame! for shame!' was shouted. Then, 'Break! break! they are killing them in front, and they cannot get away'; and there was a general cry of 'break! break!' For a moment the crowd held back as in a pause; then was a rush, heavy and resistless as a headlong sea, and a sound like low thunder, with screams, prayers, and imprecations from the crowd moiled and sabre-doomed who could not escape p.151

I also found it interesting, at more cultural level level, to read about this plan hatched by Coleridge and his friend Southey's to create a proto-communist commune, inspired by the theory of Adam Smith, of all people:

1794: Twelve gentlemen of good education and liberal principles are to embark with twelve ladies in April next. Previous to their leaving this country they are to have as much intercourse as possible, in order to ascertain each other's dispositions, and firmly to settle every regulation for the government of their future conduct. Their opinion was that they should fix themselves at - I do not recollect the place, but somewhere in a delightful part of the new back settlements; that each man should labour two or three hours a day, the produce of which labour would, they imagine, be more than sufficient to support the colony. As Adam Smith observes that there is not above one productive man in twenty, they argue that if each laboured the twentieth part of time, it would produce enough to satisfy their wants. The produce of their industry is to be laid up in common for the use of all; and a good Hbrary of books is to be collected, and their leisure hours to be spent in study, hberal discussion, and the education of their children p. 105

...and to compare it with this later letter from Coleridge who describes himself as both a lover of chemistry and a wannabe horticulturalist...

1801: Metaphysics & Poetry and 'Facts of Mind', (i.e. Accounts of all the strange phantasms that ever possessed your philosophy-dreamers; from Thoth, the Egyptian to Taylor the English pagan,) are my darling Studies. - In short, I seldom read except to amuse myself - & I am almost always reading - Of useful knowledge, I am a so-so chemist, & I love chemistry - all else is blank - but I will be (please God) an Horticulturalist and a Farmer. p.108

...yet condemns the work of Newton (for ignoring the mind):

I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as without impropriety to be deemed false. Newton was a mere materialist. Mind, in his system, is always passive, - a lazy Looker-on on an external world. If the mind be not passive, if it be indeed made in God's Image, and that, too, in the sublimest sense, the Image of the Creator, there is ground for suspicion that any system built on the passiveness of the mind must be false, as a system.

I need not observe, my dear friend, how unutterably silly and contemptible these Opinions would be if written to any but to another self. I assure you, solemnly assure you, that you and Wordsworth are the only men on Earth to whom I would have uttered a word on the subject p.117

The book certainly gives you a taste of the world-encompassing ambition of that grand and optimistic age:

1838: And thousands of centuries rolled by, and I returned, and, lo! the ocean was gone, and dry land had again appeared, and it was covered with groves and forests; but these were wholly different in character from those of the vanished country of the Iguanodon. And I beheld herds of deer of enormous size, quietly browsing, and groups of elephants, mastodons, and other herbivorous animals of colossal magnitude... And another epoch passed away, and I came again to the scene of my former contemplations; and all the mighty forms which I had left had disappeared, the face of the country no longer presented the same aspect: it was broken into islands, and the bottom of the sea had become dry land, and what before was dry land had sunk beneath the waves. Herds of deer were still to be seen on the plains, with swine, and horses, and oxen; and bears and wolves in the woods and forests. And I beheld human beings, clad in the skins of animals, and armed with clubs and spears; and they had formed themselves habitations in caves, constructed huts for shelter, and enclosed pastures for cattle, and were endeavouring to cultivate the soil. - And a thousand years elapsed, and I revisited the country, and a village had been built upon the sea-shore, and its inhabitants supported themselves by fishing; and they had erected a temple on the neighbouring hill, and dedicated it to their patron saint... And lastly, after the interval of many centuries, I arrived once more, and the village was swept away, and its site covered by the waves; but in the valley and on the hills above the cliffs a beautiful city appeared; with its palaces, its temples, and its thousand edifices, and its streets teeming with a busy population in the highest state of civilization; the resorts of the nobles of the land, the residence of the monarch of a mighty empire. And I perceived many of its intelligent inhabitants gathering together the vestiges of the beings which had lived and died, and whose very forms were now obliterated from the face of the earth, and endeavouring, by these natural memorials, to trace the succession of those events of which I had been the witness and which had preceded the history of their race.'

From The Wonders of Geology by Gideon Munteli, 1838. p. 206

And again here:

1847Yet, as I often think, it is not the poetical imagination, but bare Science that every day more and more unrolls a greater Epic than the Iliad; the history of the World, the infinitudes of Space and Time! I never take up a book of Geology or Astronomy but this strikes me. And when we think that Man must go on to discover in the same plodding way, one fancies that the Poet of to-day may as well fold his hands, or turn them to dig and delve, considering how soon the march of discovery will distance all his imaginations [and] dissolve the language in which they are uttered. Martial, as you say, lives now, after two thousand years; a space that seems long to us whose lives are so brief; but a moment, the twinkling of an eye, if compared (not to Eternity alone) but to the ages which it is now known the world must have existed, and (unless for some external violence) must continue to exist. Lyell in his book about America, says that the falls of Niagara, if (as seems certain) they have worked their way back southwards for seven miles, must have taken over 35,000 years to do so, at the rate of something over a foot a year! Sometimes they fall back on a stratum that crumbles away from behind them more easily; but then again they had to roll over rock that yields to them scarcely more perceptibly than the anvil to the serpent. And those very soft strata which the Cataract now erodes contain evidences of a race of animals, and of the action of seas washing over them, long before Niagara came to have a distinct current; and the rocks were compounded ages and ages before those strata! So that, as Lyell says, the Geologist looking at Niagara forgets even the roar of its waters in the contemplation of the awful processes of time that it suggests. It is not only that this vision of Time must wither the Poet's hope of immortality; but it is in itself more wonderful than all the conceptions of Dante and Milton.

Edward Fitzgerald to E.B. Cowell p. 236-7

And here:

1860: I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or a bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out to be an idiot) is born by the action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason why a man, or other animal, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws, and that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event and consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I have probably shown by this letter

Charles Darwin
p. 286

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

jennings was an obscure but seemingly talented filmmaker and poet and this book is sort of like a collage poem, made up of various found texts chronicling the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism in britain. you'll find here texts as varied as poems by milton and blake, personal letters written by the famous and non famous, sections from dickens novels, scientific publications and accounts of industrial development. there is also some commentary and analysis from jennings which i generally found more interesting than the texts themselves, however it is quite fragmentary and not always found in some sections, probably because jennings died young before he finished the book and it was edited together after his death. i appreciate the form of this and there's some genuinely fascinating texts collected here, although i think reading it through front to back as i tried to was probably a mistake, because after a while it got a little dull and i started skipping sections - it's perhaps a book to be flipped through rather than read. it would have been interesting to see how this would have turned out had jennings lived to finish it, as i'd expect much of his critical commentary might have been fleshed out and expanded from the brief notes you can find here.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not necessarily aware of other histories constructed like this; letters, journalism, speeches, poems, songs, etc of an era, delineating a social experience. Perhaps it would entail a tremendous amount of work for little profit–Jennings barely inserts himself into the texts, though I wonder if he'd lived to complete Pandaemonium, he wouldn't have trimmed some fat or editorialized to a greater extent.

Nevertheless, Jennings makes some really fascinating juxtapositions, such as picking out the thread between burgeoning material sciences and the treatment of workers as objects or people like Coleridge or Wordsworth mourning what they know is to be lost in the gain of a relative few.

Pandaemonium was sometimes a slog; I was more more interested in labor conditions than I was every other entry dealing with some guy's hot air balloon travel or another guy's monkeying around with test tubes. I was disappointed to find that there wasn't much firsthand account of the psychological effect and existential torment of enclosure but that's on me; it's not like those people were publishing. More than anything else, Jennings' work tells you nothing's really new; you might as well be reading a book compiling the exhortation of STEM boosters and all the different ways they can talk themselves into believing exploitation and alienation of others is actually progress.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Pandaemonium: The coming of the machine" is an awkward, grinding introduction to the industrial revolution for this member of a post-industrial generation. The book's modernist fragmentary form clashes with the distant science and the staid, long-winded language of the period. This is compounded by Jennings' infrequent commentary: as its density and insight - pointing to esoteric associations between texts that were beyond my capacity to notice for myself - often seemed a more valuable proposition than the contemporary accounts.

However, some of the content is rewarding and almost a pleasure such as this irreverent snippet from James Nasmyth, 1864... "Among the many things that I showed Sir John [Herschel] while at Hammerfield, was a piece of white calico on which I had got printed one million spots. This was for the purpose of exhibiting one million in visible form. In astronomical subjects a million is a sort of unit, and it occurred to me to show what a million really is. Sir John was delighted and astonished at the sight. He went carefully over the outstretched piece with his rule, measured its length and breadth, and verified its correctness."

[Richard Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book. Blogs from past! I particularly enjoyed people writing about their experiences of speed from the train, and heights from balloons.

Sad accounts of the poverty and working conditions of people well documented here, as are some of the political and social insights of the times.

[Mallen Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating mini-glimpses of life through the dark heat of the industrial revolution, as recorded by those that lived through it. A great slice of history from multiple perspectives.

[Ben Pan]

to read later

[Mark Deadman · Rating 5 out of 5]

By Michael Faraday, Natural Philosopher

Upon perusing this volume—Pandaemonium, as it is so vividly and provocatively titled—I found myself quite overwhelmed by the splendour and terror contained within. This is no mere history, but a chorus of voices, each bearing witness to the thunderous transformation of our society as the powers of steam, gear, and electricity emerged from humble curiosity and into dominion.

Editor Humphrey Jennings has achieved what many men of science aspire to: the assembly of diverse fragments into a coherent and illuminating whole. From the early musings of speculative tinkerers to the sombre reflections of workers amid the clamour of looms and furnaces, this compilation captures not just the facts of the Industrial Age, but the very soul of its upheaval.

As one who has handled voltaic piles and observed the graceful dance of magnetic lines, I was particularly moved by the mingling of awe and dread that accompanied each invention. The machine, as Jennings’ witnesses so powerfully show, is both Prometheus and Pandora.

Indeed, this is no dry chronology, but a vivid panorama—voices raw, lyrical, furious, hopeful. One hears the clang of iron rails, the hiss of steam, the murmur of revolution in the parlour and the factory alike. In these pages lies the very heartbeat of an age intoxicated with its own potential—and often blind to its consequences.

I commend this work not only to students of history, but to every citizen of the present age, so they might ponder the price of progress, and the dignity of the human spirit amidst the whirr of mechanised ambition.

Highly recommended. And may we never forget the spark of wonder from which all true discovery arises.

[Mylesgorton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of excerpts from sources relating to the coming of the industrial revolution presented in chronological order. The excerpts were gathered over many years by the author and published post-humosly by his daughter. The book is said to have played a great part in inspiring Danny Boyle's 2012 London Olympic Opening ceremony.

I really had high hopes for this book as I am fascinated by this topic, and it delivered in part. Some of the "images" (as the author calls the passages presented) provide fascinating insight into the coming of the industrial revolution and the social changes that came with it, some of these also provided me with pointers to other contemporary books or authors which I might find interesting ito read up on (and many of which can be found for free on project gutenberg or amazon due to their age. Other "images" however were really dry and of little interest - perhaps I should just have skipped these, but I wanted to read every element of the book to pick out the elements. I think in truth that this book was rather too academic for me - some texts were left in French, which I can't read, also a number of author comments refer to other texts which I'm sure would be present in a well stocked academic's library, but not to hand for me. I plan to revisit this book using one of the alternative reading routes suggested in the book (an interesting approach which gathers together "images" relating to certain themes such as "railways", "Mines", "Industrial", "London". It is also worth noting that this review is for the original binding, there has been a re-release which was re-edited post 2012 interest in the book. I intend to try and find a copy of this as reviews seem to suggest it has been re-edited for a modern readership, but notes that there is a fair amount left out (which is why I sought out a copy of the original).

[Jacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of contemporary texts on the progress of the industrial revolution from 1660 to 1866, well chosen and arranged in chronologigal order. It includes poetry, diary extracts and contemporary writings and gives an excellent flavour of the changes taking place. It provides a continuous narrative of the industrial revolution, but told from many different viewpoints, a narrative of ideas and emotions, not merely of hard facts and mechanical innovations. The pieces illuminate the industrial revolution as straightforward text books cannot.

Humphrey Jennings was a documentary film maker who died in 1850 with this work incomplete, but with a huge selection of writings and notes from which it has been assembled by Charles Madge. True to Jennings original intention this collection of writings is a visual piece. From a personal research point of view, it provides an insight into the period I'm writing about, from descriptions of London, scientific treatises, newspaper articles, letters, extracts, pamphlets, diaries and poems. It includes writings of Lord Byron, William Cobbett, William Blake, Jeremy Bentham, James Watt, Vincent Lunardi, Tom Paine, Elizabeth Fry, Dorothy Wordswirth, Tom Poole, Michael Faraday and many, many more. Highly recommended.

[Roy Kenagy]

I bought a copy of Pandaemonium maybe 10 years ago but never managed to get it read. I saw a reference today that compares it to Walter Benjamin's "The Arcades Project" (I've been stalled about half way through "Arcades" for several years). It's time to track both down on my disorganized shelves and study them!

NYT review (1985): http://nyti.ms/t5XOSs

"For Humphrey Jennings, Pandaemonium was a prophetic symbol of industrialism, and it provides not only the title but also the starting point of his attempt to chronicle 'the imaginative history of the Industrial Revolution.' This was best done, he thought, by letting those who took part in the process speak for themselves, and Milton's lines usher in a collection of some 370 texts ranging from the 1660's to the 1880's - the testimony of scientists, artists, rich men, poor men and a great throng of miscellaneous witnesses. Between them, these passages (or 'images,' as Jennings preferred to call them) are meant to provide a composite picture of how contemporaries experienced the triumph of the machine, how it transformed both their outward circumstances and inner lives."

[Nicki Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book with mixed views. On the one hand it contained some fascinating accounts of daily life and early experiences of technology. But on the other hand, some passages felt too long and dragged. In addition, a number of pictures and illustrations are referred to at the start of the book, but only a handful showed up on my Kobo. I am unsure if this was an issue with the way the book displayed on my e-reader or due to the fact it was an ARC copy and maybe not all images had been put in place yet. Either way, it did make the book feel like a solid lump of text without much breaking the passages up, making it feel heavy-going at times.

I think this is a book that offers interesting snippets when dipped into, opening a page at random, but as a book to read from cover to cover, it varies between dullness and fascination.

For those with a great interest in this period and in the Industrial Revolution, this book will be a good reference point, but I would probably not recommend it to the casual reader.

I received this book as a free e-book ARC via NetGalley.

[tara bomp · Rating 3 out of 5]

the quality varies massively because there are so many source extracts that vary in how they're written and what they say. some were a drag and hard to read (the early writing in particular is horrible because the language is archaic) some are really interesting documentary history. sometimes fragments could probably be interesting if given wider context. I'd have appreciated more editor interludes. personally i have trouble with descriptive writing so the significant amount which is pretty much just that was really hard for me. ultimately it's a really idiosyncratic book reflecting the editor's idiosyncratic views. if the concept sounds interesting you'll probably like at least parts of it but skipping boring stuff is probably a good idea

technically didn't finish this, but got half way and skipped around a bit. given it's a compilation of fragments i feel it's fair to review it/say i finished it without reading every word. maybe one day I'll come back to it

[Adrian]

A compendium of historical notes on the arrival of the industrial revolution- starting in the early 1600s and ending in the 1880s. It took me much longer to read this book than it should have as I got bogged down by the theoretical/scientific passages, which toward the end I skipped. I much preferred the straightforward reportorial pieces which brought forward the excitement people felt for such marvels as seeing objects through a microscope, floating above London in a hot air balloon, or travelling at the unheard of speed of 36 mph in a steam train. It's the kind of excitement never felt in our own time. We seem to take it all as a matter of course.

[Coco Smit · Rating 5 out of 5]

1660 - 1886
The Coming of the Machine

I wish more history books like these existed. Jennings really had an excellent mind in finding and compiling these fragments of dairies, letters, articles, and poetry. Putting them in chronological order gives you a bird's-eye view through time, occasionally 'interrupted' by Jennings words, where he tells you briefly why he chose this section, what made it interesting and sometimes references back or forth to another piece to show their connection.

[Hazel]

This collection of writings on the industrial revolution is said to be part of the inspiration for the Opening Ceremony of the London Games: Frank Cottrell Boyce in the Observer.