Before the Luddites PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Before the Luddites PDF full book. Access full book title Before the Luddites by Adrian Randall. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Adrian Randall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521893343
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Get Book Here
Book Description
A study of the early Industrial Revolution in the English woollen cloth making industry.
Author: Adrian Randall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521893343
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Get Book Here
Book Description
A study of the early Industrial Revolution in the English woollen cloth making industry.
Author: Gavin Mueller
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786636751
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191
Get Book Here
Book Description
In the Nineteenth-century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. For years the Luddites roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and manoeuvres that they would later deploy on unsuspecting machines. The movement has been derided by scholars as a backwards-looking and ultimately ineffectual effort to stem the march of history; for Gavin Mueller, the movement gets at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between all workers, including us today, and the so-called progressive gains secured by new technologies. The luddites weren't primitive and they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the twenty-first century world. Breaking Things at Work is an innovative rethinking of labour and machines, leaping from textile mills to algorithms, from existentially threatened knife cutters of rural Germany to surveillance-evading truckers driving across the continental United States. Mueller argues that the future stability and empowerment of working-class movements will depend on subverting these technologies and preventing their spread wherever possible. The task is intimidating, but the seeds of this resistance are already present in the neo-Luddite efforts of hackers, pirates, and dark web users who are challenging surveillance and control, often through older systems of communication technology.
Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781719361866
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 98
Get Book Here
Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Between the 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain experienced massive leaps in technological, scientific, and economical advancement. This powerful period has since been immortalized as the great Industrial Revolution, during which Britain became a formidable force that boasted unmatched economical growth, drastic changes in living conditions, and even the emergence of a neglected social class. Vast portions of rural lands were transformed into interconnected, complex, and multitasking cities. Dozens of innovative inventions and products were churned out in bulk and sold to the masses for the first time ever. Some of the greatest thinkers and creators ventured forth from the shadows. Scientists, engineers, merchants, and manufacturers alike were at the height of their prime, nurtured by a culture that embraced the vision of growth, progress, and industrial unity. The Industrial Revolution saw Britain rise to the top and become the envy of the world's most prestigious nations. At the same time, the pivotal era was far from perfect, featuring a dark underbelly and an army of unsung heroes. It was American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler who once called technology "the great growing engine of change." The 18th century German linguist Johann Gottfried von Herder was another proponent of enlightenment and technological progress. "Nothing in Nature stands still," said von Herder. "Everything strives and moves forward." One would be hard-pressed to find anyone today that would disagree with these sentiments. Those whose opinions suggest otherwise are often thoughtlessly dismissed, and those who hold them ridiculed as tin-foil-hat sporting paranoids or pretentious "hipsters." But what happens when the very instruments meant to help people begin to put lives at stake? Meet the Luddites, a 19th century brotherhood of rebels who vowed to annihilate every last one of the newfangled spinning machines that cost thousands their jobs. The Luddites' riots are indefensible, at least from the standpoint of violence, but they beg the question of whether the protests were nonsensical acts of rage carried out by thugs who sought to exploit imagined fears or desperate measures taken by those who felt neglected by the government. The Luddites: The History and Legacy of the English Rebels Who Protested against Advanced Machinery during the Industrial Revolution chronicles the revolution and the negative reaction to it. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Luddites like never before.
Author: Nicols Fox
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 159726833X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Get Book Here
Book Description
From the cars we drive to the instant messages we receive, from debate about genetically modified foods to astonishing strides in cloning, robotics, and nanotechnology, it would be hard to deny technology's powerful grip on our lives. To stop and ask whether this digitized, implanted reality is quite what we had in mind when we opted for progress, or to ask if we might not be creating more problems than we solve, is likely to peg us as hopelessly backward or suspiciously eccentric. Yet not only questioning, but challenging technology turns out to have a long and noble history. In this timely and incisive work, Nicols Fox examines contemporary resistance to technology and places it in a surprising historical context. She brilliantly illuminates the rich but oftentimes unrecognized literary and philosophical tradition that has existed for nearly two centuries, since the first Luddites—the ""machine breaking"" followers of the mythical Ned Ludd—lifted their sledgehammers in protest against the Industrial Revolution. Tracing that current of thought through some of the great minds of the 19th and 20th centuries—William Blake, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Graves, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and many others—Fox demonstrates that modern protests against consumptive lifestyles and misgivings about the relentless march of mechanization are part of a fascinating hidden history. She shows as well that the Luddite tradition can yield important insights into how we might reshape both technology and modern life so that human, community, and environmental values take precedence over the demands of the machine. In Against the Machine, Nicols Fox writes with compelling immediacy—bringing a new dimension and depth to the debate over what technology means, both now and for our future.
Author: Steven E. Jones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135522391
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book addresses the question of what it might mean today to be a Luddite--that is, to take a stand against technology. Steven Jones here explains the history of the Luddites, British textile works who, from around 1811, proclaimed themselves followers of "Ned Ludd" and smashed machinery they saw as threatening their trade. Against Technology is not a history of the Luddites, but a history of an idea: how the activities of a group of British workers in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire came to stand for a global anti-technology philosophy, and how an anonymous collective movement came to be identified with an individualistic personal conviction. Angry textile workers in the early nineteenth century became romantic symbols of a desire for a simple life--certainly not the original goal of the actions for which they became famous. Against Technology is, in other words, a book about representations, about the image and the myth of the Luddites and how that myth was transformed over time into modern neo-Luddism.
Author: Kirkpatrick Sale
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780704380073
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Get Book Here
Book Description
The first technology backlash was in 1811, when the Luddites fought to preserve their jobs by wrecking the machines that were to replace them. Their story inspires a new Luddite spirit in response to 20th-century technological advances, calling for an intellectually and ethically sound protest.
Author: Kevin Binfield
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421416964
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Get Book Here
Book Description
"As mechanization spread through the British cloth industries in the early nineteenth century, skilled textile workers, already suffering because of a generally weak economy, high unemployment, and the weakening of traditional guides, saw their wages and jobs erode further. Earlier efforts to block the introduction of powered machinery through legislation had failed, and in 1811 loosely organized bands of workers, striking most often by night - first in the Midlands, then in Yorkshire and Northwestern England - began destroying the new knitting frames and other equipment. Claiming as their leader the probably mythical Ned Ludd, they became known as Luddites. Although best known for violent action, the Luddite movement also produced a considerable body of writing, from threatening letters, to petitions and proclamations, to poems and songs. In this book, literary scholar Kevin Binfield collects a broad range of complete texts written by Luddites or their sympathizers from 1811 to 1816, adding detailed notes on each and organizing them according to the three major regions of Luddite activity." "To introduce the volume Binfield provides a historical overview of the Luddites, then examines more closely their rhetorical strategies while illuminating the literary contexts of their writings. Ranging from judicious to bloodthirsty in tone, the texts reveal a fascination with legal forms of address and an acute awareness of the recent political revolutions in France and America, and reflect also the more personal forms of Romantic literature. As Adrian Randall of the University of Birmingham concludes in his foreword, this collection of diverse, carefully presented texts clearly demonstrates the significance of Luddite writings within the movement and serves as an important reference for scholars of rhetoric and of the history of labor, technology, and society." --Book Jacket.
Author: Ben Orlin
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN: 0316509027
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Get Book Here
Book Description
A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world. In Math With Bad Drawings, Ben Orlin reveals to us what math actually is; its myriad uses, its strange symbols, and the wild leaps of logic and faith that define the usually impenetrable work of the mathematician. Truth and knowledge come in multiple forms: colorful drawings, encouraging jokes, and the stories and insights of an empathetic teacher who believes that math should belong to everyone. Orlin shows us how to think like a mathematician by teaching us a brand-new game of tic-tac-toe, how to understand an economic crises by rolling a pair of dice, and the mathematical headache that ensues when attempting to build a spherical Death Star. Every discussion in the book is illustrated with Orlin's trademark "bad drawings," which convey his message and insights with perfect pitch and clarity. With 24 chapters covering topics from the electoral college to human genetics to the reasons not to trust statistics, Math with Bad Drawings is a life-changing book for the math-estranged and math-enamored alike.
Author: Brian Bailey
Publisher: Alan Sutton Publishing
ISBN: 9780750913539
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Get Book Here
Book Description
This narrative history provides an account of the events leading up to the machine-breaking of the Luddite Rebellion, describing the progress of the riots in detail, as well as examining their motivation and the political and economic legacy they left behind.
Author: D. F. E. Sykes
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Get Book Here
Book Description
First published in 1898, this fiction deals with surprisingly contemporary issues of the period and is the social history of the time it stands out. What makes this work different from the existing literature of that period is the use of the local dialect and the expertise with which the characters and their lives have been portrayed at a period of such unrest in the Colne Valley. The Luddites were not unreasonable machine destroyers but desperate men, suffering in destitution, sorrow, and despair, fighting for a voice to be heard against cruel mill owners and a crooked government. The authors of this work were transparent in their compassion for the cause of these workers and the background and reasoning behind these events The book was originally credited to D. F. E. Sykes and G. H. Walker, G. H., but Walker's name.
