In this work, Nicols Fox examines contemporary resistance to technology and places it in a surprising historical context. She 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 thought through some of the greatest 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, 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.
