​For two centuries Americans have willingly and whole-heartedly embraced a modern life that technology has made possible. As a result, we have enjoyed the benefits of speed, efficiency, and access to an exhaustive supply of consumer products.

Meanwhile, we are a stressed out, frustrated, and angry people that has become totally dependent on our technology for our everyday lives. People routinely bang on their computers in a way reminiscent of the first Luddites who hammered at the weaving frames of the smoke-belching factories of Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield. Nicols Fox in her book, Against the Machine provides an astute and highly fascinating account of how we have come to where we are today and what we sacrificed as a result.

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The Luddites, Fox emphasizes, didn't shun machines or technology out of hand. Instead, they “[favored] a thoughtful use of appropriate technologies that [did] not damage the relationships we hold dear,” especially those with the natural world. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, American technology and industrialism become tied to capitalism and consumerism in which “all life was being bought and sold,” according to historian E.P. Thompson.

The books’ most notable chapter is devoted to technology’s influence on agriculture and farm life. Fox notes that the people’s relationship to the land, the seasons, the community, and even the soil was completely changed by those advocates of technology who, curiously, stood to gain from the changes: the corporations, the universities, and the government.