Against the Machine

On the Unmaking of Humanity

By: Paul Kingsnorth

Narrated by: Owen Hall

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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 masterful 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. Writing in the tradition of Wendell Berry, Jacques Ellul and Simone Weil, 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, poetic, and erudite, Against the Machine is the spiritual manual for dissidents in the technological age.

Critic reviews

“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-Ruiu, 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

an answer to the question

Paul gives us not more ammo for complaining, but instead points us toward a solution, or the many solutions.
-Fr. Moses Locke

Absolute best!

It aligned with what I feel and have been feeling for many years now, but listening it just made everything more clear. Thank you!

Phenomenal

This is the best, fiercest, pull no punches look at the centuries-long IV drip of cumulative choices from church, state and the body politic that got us here.

Great Book. Not the best Narrator.

I loved everything about this book except for the narration. Maybe it's just me, but the narrator often sounded a bit sassy at times and over the course of the entire book, it started to get on my nerves.

rain dancing home

sunflower, warrior, bone and tatters king,
broken sword, naked body, flash of white,
a scream in the dark—then days and days and days
coming to at the sound of gulls,
waves lick the crashed coracle,
homeless, all of us.
build here.