Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World

Joshua B. Freeman

ISBN 10: 0393356620 / ISBN 13: 9780393356625

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2019

About this Item

Light wear to the covers. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday. Seller Inventory # pb049-0222-0899

Bibliographic Details

Title: Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the ...

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Publication Date: 2019

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis:

"Freeman has written a superb account of how the material world in his phrase became "factory made"...The author's sympathy, insight and exemplary anecdotes make this a marvellous book." Ian Jack, Book of the Week, The Guardian

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 fuelled 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.

Short-listed for the Cundill History Prize, 2018

About the Author:

Joshua B. Freeman is a Distinguished Professor of History at Queens College and the Graduate Center of CUNY. His previous books include American Empire and Working-Class New York, among others. He lives in New York City.