Rebels Against The Future The Luddites And Their War On The Industrial Revolution: Lessons For The Computer Age

by Sale, Kirkpatrick

• ISBN13: 9780201407181
• ISBN10: 0201407183
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-17
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

Kirkpatrick Sale is at the tumultuous center of a technology backlash, actively challenging Bill Gates on the one hand and the Unabomber on the other. The subject of bets, barbs, and grudging praise in the pages ofWIRED, The New York Times, Newsweek,andThe New Yorker,Rebels Against the Futuretakes us back to the first technology backlash, the short-lived and fierce Luddite rebellion of 1811. Sale tells the compelling story of the Luddites' struggle to preserve their jobs and way of life by destroying the machines that threatened to replace them; he then invokes a new-Luddite spirit in response to today's technological revolution and calls for another sort of rebellion: not one of violence but rather of intellectually and ethically sound protest.

Author Biography

Kirkpatrick Sale is a contributing editor of The Nation and the author of many books, including Conquering Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition	ix
Author's Note	xi
Introduction	1	(6)
``With Hatchet, Pike, and Gun''	7	(18)
The First Industrial Revolution	25	(36)
The Luddites: November--December 1811	61	(30)
The Luddites: January--April 1812	91	(34)
The Luddites: April--May 1812	125	(28)
The Luddites: May 1812--January 1813	153	(34)
The Luddites: 1813--...	187	(18)
The Second Industrial Revolution	205	(32)
The Neo-Luddites	237	(24)
Lessons from the Luddites	261	(20)
Timeline	281	(4)
Acknowledgments	285	(2)
Source Notes	287	(24)
Index	311