The Dreadnought

The Dreadnought

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How liberty thrives

The tragedy and possibility of the Luddites

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James Robins
Nov 07, 2023
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Peterloo, 1819

FOR THE NEW REPUBLIC, I reviewed Brian Merchant’s new book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, an attempt to compare the Luddite campaign of machinebreaking to modern movements rebelling against the rise of new technologies:

The artist J.M.W. Turner saw it too, this passing, in his innumerable sketches of h…

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