Events › Nonfiction Night: Blood in the Machine

Brian Merchant intertwines a lucid examination of our current age with the story of the Luddites, showing how automation changed our world—and is shaping our future. Join our nonfiction book club in March to discuss this title.

Print copies will be available at the Brighton Branch front desk while supplies last.

Nonfiction Night reads nonfiction across a wide variety of subjects. No registration required, you're welcome to drop in. We also welcome readers who decided not to or weren't able to finish the book –– as long as you're okay with spoilers.

From the book description:

The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods.

The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees.

Today, technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are crowding factory floors, and artificial intelligence will soon pervade every aspect of our economy. How will this change the way we live? And what can we do about it?

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