The Machine Age
The Machine Age
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The Machine Age by Robert Skidelsky
A sweeping history of and meditation on humanity's relationship with machines, showing how we got here and what happens next Faith in technological fixes for our problems is waning. Automation, which promised relief from toil, has reactivated the long-standing fear of job redundancy. Information technology, meant to liberate us from traditional authority, is placing unprecedented powers of surveillance and control in the hands of a purely secular Big Brother. And for the first time, artificial intelligence threatens anthropogenic disaster – disaster caused by our own activities. Scientists join imaginative writers in warning us of the fate of Icarus, whose wings melted because he flew too close to the sun. This book tells the story of our fractured relationship with machines from humanity’s first tools down to the present and into the future. It raises the crucial question of why some parts of the world developed a ‘machine civilisation’ and not others, and traces the interactions between capitalism and technology, and between science and religion, in the making of the modern world. Taking in the peaks of philosophy and triumphs of science, the foundation of economics and speculations of fiction, Robert Skidelsky embarks on a bold intellectual journey through the evolution of our understanding of technology and what this means for our lives and politics. ‘Unless we understand technology as a system of ideas rather than as a necessity,’ he writes, ‘we will be powerless to choose which technology is best suited to our needs and purposes.’
Praise for Robert Skidelsky -- -
A truly innovative and radical perspective … thought-stirring and extremely refreshing -- John Gray * Guardian *
Arresting insights, written – despite its complex and heavyweight subject matter – with a captivating lightness of touch -- Dominic Lawson * The Sunday Times *
Crisp and pungent … deeply provocative and intellectually suggestive -- Rowan Williams * Prospect *
Skidelsky is a major figure in the revival of Keynesian thought -- Martin Wolf * Financial Times *
A truly innovative and radical perspective … thought-stirring and extremely refreshing -- John Gray * Guardian *
Arresting insights, written – despite its complex and heavyweight subject matter – with a captivating lightness of touch -- Dominic Lawson * The Sunday Times *
Crisp and pungent … deeply provocative and intellectually suggestive -- Rowan Williams * Prospect *
Skidelsky is a major figure in the revival of Keynesian thought -- Martin Wolf * Financial Times *
Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He was made a life peer in 1991, and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780241244616 |
| ISBN 10 | 0241244617 |
| Title | The Machine Age |
| Author | Robert Skidelsky |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2023-11-02 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |