Behemoth a history of the factory and the making of the modern world /
Factories, with their ingenious machinery and miraculous productivity, are celebrated as modern wonders of the world. Yet from William Blake's "dark Satanic mills" they have also fueled our fears of the future. Telling the story of the factory, Joshua B. Freeman takes readers from the...
| Main Author: | Freeman, Joshua Benjamin, |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
[2018]
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| Physical Description: |
xviii, 427 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. |
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
More Info |
| Summary: |
Factories, with their ingenious machinery and miraculous productivity, are celebrated as modern wonders of the world. Yet from William Blake's "dark Satanic mills" they have also fueled our fears of the future. Telling the story of the factory, Joshua B. Freeman takes readers from the textile mills in England that powered the Industrial Revolution to the steel and car plants of twentieth-century America, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, to today's behemoths making trainers, toys and iPhones in China and Vietnam. He traces arguments about factories and social progress through such critics and champions as Marx, Ford and Stalin. And he explores the representation of factories in the work of Margaret Bourke-White, Charlie Chaplin and Diego Rivera. |
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| Item Description: |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-400) and index. Introduction -- "Like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter" : the invention of the factory -- "The living light" : New England textiles and visions of utopia -- "The progress of civilization" : industrial exhibitions, steelmaking, and the price of Prometheanism -- "I worship factories" : Fordism, labor, and the romance of the giant factory -- "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" : crash industrialization in the Soviet Union -- "Common requirements of industrialization" : Cold War mass production -- "Foxconn City" : giant factories in China and Vietnam -- Conclusion. Factories, with their ingenious machinery and miraculous productivity, are celebrated as modern wonders of the world. Yet from William Blake's "dark Satanic mills" they have also fueled our fears of the future. Telling the story of the factory, Joshua B. Freeman takes readers from the textile mills in England that powered the Industrial Revolution to the steel and car plants of twentieth-century America, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, to today's behemoths making trainers, toys and iPhones in China and Vietnam. He traces arguments about factories and social progress through such critics and champions as Marx, Ford and Stalin. And he explores the representation of factories in the work of Margaret Bourke-White, Charlie Chaplin and Diego Rivera. |
| Physical Description: |
xviii, 427 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-400) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780393246315 0393246310 |