Book Club - Against the Machine

Colder weather does put a damper on outdoor opportunities. For December, we're going to try something a little different - namely a book discussion! For December, we will be reading Paul Kingsnorth's 2025 title Against the Machine.

Paul Kingsnorth was an environmentalist of some renown in the 1990s. Once the publication editor for Greenpeace and the deputy editor for the radical Ecologist magazine, Kingsnorth's positions have evolved considerably over the last 30 years. Where he once might have believed that our environmental crisis could be solved by top down systems, legislation, and novel technologies, Against the Machine argues that such approaches are exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Against the Machine investigates how the industrial and tech revolutions have fundamentally altered the way we view nature, govern society, and, perhaps most importantly, understand what it means to be a human being. What is nature for? How should we engage with it? What is a human for? How do we joyfully live as one? How do these things all relate?

I personally think Against the Machine is one of the most important books to be written in the last 25 years. I know of no other title that really gets the human and ecological crisis we're in right now. Fans of Tolkien, CS Lewis, Jacques Elull, Marshall McLuhan, and even Ted Kaczynski (minus the bombs) will love this book. And even and especially if you think this is all bunk, come! Discuss. I'll be bringing tea!