This is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve read. It’s an impressive feat of research: Merchant writes about the beginning of the Industrial Revolution with incredible detail, balancing very dense storytelling with short, focused chapters to keep it from overwhelming.

The story itself is rich and almost impossible to believe: Lord Byron, Frankenstein, Walter Scott, the Bronte sisters, and a handful of other historical giants are here, woven in with Bezos, Zuckerberg, Kalanick and other modern ‘disrupters’. Merchant does an incredible job of drawing parallels between the two eras, including deteriorating working conditions, capital’s influence on legislation, and the dishonest portrayal of acts of protest in the media.

The last 50 pages alone are worth the price of admission, and techno-optimists would benefit from a read as well — Merchant breaks down the issues and concerns of modern labour in ways that business and government should address.

Reading all of this just as the WGA achieved a decisive victory in their strike, addressing concerns about depreciating working conditions, authors working to keep their work from being used to train the LLMs that tech bros think will replace them, and A16z’s tone-deaf, boneheaded, cartoon villain-esque manifesto that declares “Social Responsibility” and “Tech Ethics” as The Enemy, and it seems like conditions are near ripe for another uprising.

This is an essential read right now.