Blood in the Machine

"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

"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." - Any Greenberg, author of Sandworm and Tracers in the Dark

"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