Against the Machine
On the Unmaking of Humanity
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Publishing:23rd Sep '25
£25.00
This title is due to be published on 23rd September, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
How a force that’s hard to name, but which we all feel, is reshaping what it means to be human
In Against the Machine, “furiously gifted” (The Washington Post) novelist, poet, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth presents a wholly original—and terrifying—account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. With insight into the spiritual and economic roots of techno-capitalism, Kingsnorth reveals how the Machine, in the name of progress, has choked Western civilization, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us in its image. From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, he shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game—and how your very soul is at stake.
It takes effort to remain truly human in the age of the Machine. Here Kingsnorth reminds us what humanity requires: a healthy suspicion of entrenched power; connection to land, nature and heritage; and a deep attention to matters of the spirit. Prophetic and poetic, Against the Machine is a spiritual manual for dissidents in the technological age.
The most powerful and important book I have read in years. This book should be required reading not only for politicians, technocrats, teachers and all who help shape our world, but for every still-living soul in this terrifying age of the Machine -- Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary
Something in our common life has long seemed bewildering, even ominous, and Paul Kingsnorth makes it finally clear what we're up against. The gears clanking around us are not working at random, but with increasingly inhuman intent. Now I see what I must do. Now I understand -- Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of Facing East
Against the Machine is an eloquent and erudite critique of the perils of modern technology. But it’s much more than that. It’s a searching, moving meditation on the fate of humanity in a world where money and mechanism have displaced meaning -- Nicholas Carr, author of Superbloom and The Shallows
Thank God for Paul Kingsnorth! Serious, furious, and always consistent, this is a Christian thinker who does not sugarcoat his convictions -- Justin Smith-Riui, author of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is
Kingsnorth has done something extraordinary: he has captured the spiritual crisis of our time in language so compelling I could not put the book down. The vision he paints is a bleak one: a post-human, machinic future. But as long as our world still has space for voices this vivid, I dare hope we have not yet succumbed to the Machine -- Mary Harrington, author of Feminism Against Progress
ISBN: 9780241788400
Dimensions: 242mm x 161mm x 32mm
Weight: 579g
368 pages