The book doesn't simply report the historical events, the years of the uprising and the important figures but uses the Luddites as a blueprint for analyzing the economic dynamics of automation and resistance against technology today.
Over the course of around 400 pages Brian deconstructs and analyzes how terms like "entrepreneur" or "innovation" changed their meaning and how the blatant attack on workers rights or shameless manipulation of regulation were used then and now by tech corporations. The book gives a most valuable framework for understanding todays reality of (digital) capitalism and what we can learn about avenues for fighting back from battles won (and lost) in the past. As a bonus you will also learn how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ada Lovelace's work on (proto) computation are closely linked to Luddism.
To finish this little review I'll leave you with two quotes that stayed with me the most:
"Some machines must be broken, so that they stop producing monsters."
"If the Luddites have taught us anything, it's that robots aren't taking our jobs. Our bosses are."
A wonderful and inspiring book, really ✨
