What People Say

“This is the most powerful and important book I have read in years. It is simply brilliant. The writing is searingly vivid, and it is a compulsive read.  Kingsnorth is unflinching in his keen-eyed gaze, and the message is chilling: but he is also inspiring in his determination that we must survive, and he points the way to what ultimately matters.  This book should be required reading not only for politicians, technocrats, teachers and all who help shape our world, but for every still-living soul in this terrifying age of the Machine.”

- Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master And His Emissary and The Matter With Things

“Against the Machine is an eloquent and erudite critique of the perils of modern technology. But it’s much more than that. It’s a searching, moving meditation on the fate of humanity in a world where money and mechanism have displaced meaning.”

- Nicholas Carr, author of Superbloom and The Shallows

“Kingsnorth has done something extraordinary: he has captured the spiritual crisis of our time in language so compelling I could not put the book down. The vision he paints is a bleak one: a post-human, machinic future. But as long as our world still has space for voices this vivid, I dare hope we have not yet succumbed to the Machine.”

- Mary Harrington, author of Feminism Against Progress

“Something in our common life has long seemed bewildering, even ominous, and Paul Kingsnorth makes it finally clear what we're up against. The gears clanking around us are not working at random, but with increasingly inhuman intent. Now I see what I must do. Now I understand.”

- Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of The Illumined Heart and Sign of the Cross

“Thank God for Paul Kingsnorth! Serious, furious, and always consistent, this is a Christian thinker who does not sugar-coat his convictions.”

- Justin Smith-Riui, author of The Internet Is Not What You Think

AGAINST THE MACHINE

COMING SEPTEMBER 2025.
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW IN THE
UK AND US.

Against the Machine is an account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. The culmination of two decades of my writing and thinking about technology, culture, spirituality and politics, it seeks to offer an insight into how the techno-industrial culture that I call ‘the Machine’ has choked Western civilisation, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us all in its image.

From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, this book shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game—and how our very soul is now at stake. Against the Machine is the spiritual manual for dissidents in the technological age.

Keep an eye on my Substack page for ongoing updates about related events and other news.