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Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives
From the cars we drive to the instant messages we receive, from debate about genetically modified foods to astonishing strides in cloning, robotics, and nanotechnology, it would be hard to deny technology's powerful grip on our lives. To stop and ask whether this digitized, implanted reality is quite what we had in mind when we opted for progress, or to ask if we might not be creating more problems than we solve, is likely to peg us as hopelessly backward or suspiciously eccentric. Yet not only questioning, but challenging technology turns out to have a long and noble history. In this timely and incisive work, Nicols Fox examines contemporary resistance to technology and places it in a surprising historical context. She brilliantly illuminates the rich but oftentimes unrecognized literary and philosophical tradition that has existed for nearly two centuries, since the first Luddites—the ""machine breaking"" followers of the mythical Ned Ludd—lifted their sledgehammers in protest against the Industrial Revolution. Tracing that current of thought through some of the great minds of the 19th and 20th centuries—William Blake, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Graves, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and many others—Fox demonstrates that modern protests against consumptive lifestyles and misgivings about the relentless march of mechanization are part of a fascinating hidden history. She shows as well that the Luddite tradition can yield important insights into how we might reshape both technology and modern life so that human, community, and environmental values take precedence over the demands of the machine. In Against the Machine , Nicols Fox writes with compelling immediacy—bringing a new dimension and depth to the debate over what technology means, both now and for our future.
- GenresHistory
424 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Nicols Fox
7 books2 followersNicols Fox is an author and bookseller. Her book AGAINST THE MACHINE: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives is now out in paperback.
She is also the author of the essay found in ALONE TOGETHER, a book of David Graham's photographs of Placentia Island.
Her first book, SPOILED: Why our Food is Making us Sick and What We Can Do About It, is in a Penguin paperback edition and now out of print, as is IT WAS PROBABLY SOMETHING YOU ATE: A Practical Guide For Avoiding and Surviving Foodborne Disease.
OTHER WORKS:
Fox's articles, essays and reviews have appeared in THE ECONOMIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, LEAR'S, NEWSWEEK, THE BOSTON GLOBE, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, ART IN AMERICA, THE NEW ART EXAMINER, THE HUNGRY MIND REVIEW (now THE RUMINATOR REVIEW), WASHINGTON JOURNALISM REVIEW (now AMERICAN JOURNALISM REVIEW) WASHINGTONIAN, MAINE TIMES, DOWN EAST, and many other publications.
A graduate of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, Fox received an MFA in creative writing and literature from Bennington College in 1999. Born in Virginia, she now lives on the coast of Maine.
She is also the author of the essay found in ALONE TOGETHER, a book of David Graham's photographs of Placentia Island.
Her first book, SPOILED: Why our Food is Making us Sick and What We Can Do About It, is in a Penguin paperback edition and now out of print, as is IT WAS PROBABLY SOMETHING YOU ATE: A Practical Guide For Avoiding and Surviving Foodborne Disease.
OTHER WORKS:
Fox's articles, essays and reviews have appeared in THE ECONOMIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, LEAR'S, NEWSWEEK, THE BOSTON GLOBE, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, ART IN AMERICA, THE NEW ART EXAMINER, THE HUNGRY MIND REVIEW (now THE RUMINATOR REVIEW), WASHINGTON JOURNALISM REVIEW (now AMERICAN JOURNALISM REVIEW) WASHINGTONIAN, MAINE TIMES, DOWN EAST, and many other publications.
A graduate of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, Fox received an MFA in creative writing and literature from Bennington College in 1999. Born in Virginia, she now lives on the coast of Maine.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 20, 2013
This is a well-meaning but, in the end, poorly crafted, poorly constructed, and poorly organized book. Well-meaning because the goal here, to flesh out the possible continuities linking disparate traditions of machine breaking, Romantic anti-technological (kind of) literature, transcendentalism, Thoreau and his ilk, the environmental movement, and some other random stuff, is a really good one. Unfortunately, the incredibly tenuous and weak linkages forged here are just that and actually dent the argument more than anything else.
The bits on the Luddites are good, if merely derivative from other works, and the examination of Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley, and other writers of the time and their involvement, subtle or not, in these events, is great. The whole thing falls to pieces after that. We are treated to half-hearted attempts to link Dickens, the Arts and Crafts movement, John Muir, and the beginnings of the American environmental movement, all tepidly and vaguely strung together as representing a Luddite strain of thought over the last couple of centuries. It is barely convincing. Taken alone, the chapters might make interesting windows onto a sort of agrarian or natural counter-culture, but DH Lawrence as a neo-Luddite might be stretching things a bit.
Remarkable are the omissions. Wells and other dystopian writers warning of the dangers of over-reliance on technology are largely left to oblivion. Science fiction is barely given a disdainful sniff, instead focusing on selective fictional works from the early 20th century. I mean, The Terminator, hello? But Fox's focus seems to be on the black/white rejection of technology out-of-hand despite her protestations that this not be her point. This brings me to my final point.
Most frustrating are the author's repeated eruptions into the text. Yes, yes, this isn't a formal work of history, there's no way it could be, but Fox's polemics often drown out the discussion. I mean, does she take these ideas seriously? It's hard to tell, which is the main flaw here: be blatant or don't be blatant, but a hesitant and staccato insertion of one's own ideals into a narrative can draw attention away from the main foci.
The bits on the Luddites are good, if merely derivative from other works, and the examination of Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley, and other writers of the time and their involvement, subtle or not, in these events, is great. The whole thing falls to pieces after that. We are treated to half-hearted attempts to link Dickens, the Arts and Crafts movement, John Muir, and the beginnings of the American environmental movement, all tepidly and vaguely strung together as representing a Luddite strain of thought over the last couple of centuries. It is barely convincing. Taken alone, the chapters might make interesting windows onto a sort of agrarian or natural counter-culture, but DH Lawrence as a neo-Luddite might be stretching things a bit.
Remarkable are the omissions. Wells and other dystopian writers warning of the dangers of over-reliance on technology are largely left to oblivion. Science fiction is barely given a disdainful sniff, instead focusing on selective fictional works from the early 20th century. I mean, The Terminator, hello? But Fox's focus seems to be on the black/white rejection of technology out-of-hand despite her protestations that this not be her point. This brings me to my final point.
Most frustrating are the author's repeated eruptions into the text. Yes, yes, this isn't a formal work of history, there's no way it could be, but Fox's polemics often drown out the discussion. I mean, does she take these ideas seriously? It's hard to tell, which is the main flaw here: be blatant or don't be blatant, but a hesitant and staccato insertion of one's own ideals into a narrative can draw attention away from the main foci.
Displaying 1 of 1 review