Audio only
Behemoth
A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern WorldBy Joshua B. FreemanNarrated by Stephen BowlbyLength13h 42m
About this audiobook
A sweeping, global history of the rise of the factory and its effects on society
We live in a factory-made world: modern life is built on three centuries of advances in factory production, efficiency, and technology. But giant factories have also fueled our fears about the future since their beginnings, when William Blake called them “dark Satanic mills.” Many factories that operated over the last two centuries―such as Homestead, River Rouge, and Foxconn―were known for the labor exploitation and class warfare they engendered, not to mention the environmental devastation caused by factory production from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution up to today.
In a major work of scholarship that is also wonderfully accessible, celebrated historian Joshua B. Freeman tells the story of the factory and examines how it has reflected both our dreams and our nightmares of industrialization and social change. He whisks readers from the textile mills in England that powered the Industrial Revolution and the factory towns of New England to the colossal steel and car plants of twentieth-century America, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union and on to today’s behemoths making sneakers, toys, and cellphones in China and Vietnam.
The giant factory, Freeman shows, led a revolution that transformed human life and the environment. He traces arguments about factories and social progress through such critics and champions as Marx and Engels, Charles Dickens, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Ford, and Joseph Stalin. He chronicles protests against standard industry practices from unions and workers’ rights groups that led to shortened workdays, child labor laws, protection for organized labor, and much more.
In Behemoth, Freeman also explores how factories became objects of great wonder that both inspired and horrified artists and writers in their time. He examines representations of factories in the work of Charles Sheeler, Margaret Bourke-White, Charlie Chaplin, Diego Rivera, and Edward Burtynsky.
Behemoth tells the grand story of global industry from the Industrial Revolution to the present. It is a magisterial work on factories and the people whose labor made them run. And it offers a piercing perspective on how factories have shaped our societies and the challenges we face now.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.0 (1.4K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing, StoryGraph
GenreHistory, Business and Economics, Technology
Length13 hrs 42 mins
Narrated byStephen Bowlby
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateFeb 27, 2018
LanguageEnglish
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Never Split the DifferenceChris Voss, Tahl Raz8h 7m4.4 (277.7K)$26 · $0.00
The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed.Benjamin Graham17h 48m4.3 (191.5K)$40 · $0.00
The Hard Thing About Hard ThingsBen Horowitz7h 57m4.2 (134.3K)$26 · $0.00
Boundaries for LeadersHenry Cloud7h 36m4.3 (3.6K)$26 · $0.00
Eat It!Jordan Syatt, Michael Vacanti4h 40m4.6 (1.5K)$20 · $0.00
Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II (Annotated)Henry George19h 21m4.6 (574)$1.99 · $0.00
Not Everything Counts but Everything Matters: The powerful and inspirational new book about leadership and achieving success from the visionary multi-premiership winning Panthers coachIvan Cleary6h 1m4.6 (680)$24 · $0.00
BuildTony Fadell11h 5m4.5 (14.3K)$8 · $0.00
The Joys Of CompoundingGautam Baid17h 34m4.5 (2.5K)$18 · $0.00
Basic EconomicsThomas Sowell18h 32m4.5 (29.3K)$28 · $0.00
The Ambuja StoryNarotam Sekhsaria13h 59m4.5 (830)$33 · $0.00
This Is Going to HurtAdam Kay5h 47m4.4 (444.7K)$24 · $0.00
Big TrustShadé Zahrai, Fayçal Sekkouah8h 36m4.6 (406)$26 · $0.00
The Intelligent Investor Third EditionBenjamin Graham, Jason Zweig20h4.4 (156.6K)$46 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
The Antiracist Business BookTrudi Lebrón6h 10m4.6 (275)$17 · $0.00
The FormulaJoshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg10h 41m4.4 (6.9K)$29 · $0.00
Let Them LeadJohn U. Bacon7h 10m4.5 (1.4K)$24 · $0.00
Secrets of the Millionaire MindT. Harv Eker5h 11m4.4 (301.4K)$24 · $0.00
The Person You Mean to BeDolly Chugh9h 6m4.4 (7.2K)$29 · $0.00
The Honey BusMeredith May9h 31m4.4 (16.6K)$25 · $0.00
Operation PedestalMax Hastings12h 29m4.4 (5.2K)$29 · $0.00
When the Heavens Went on SaleAshlee Vance18h 20m4.4 (3K)$40 · $0.00
Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You)Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Griffin McElroy5h 9m4.3 (2.3K)$24 · $0.00
Hands of TimeRebecca Struthers8h 8m4.4 (1.3K)$26 · $0.00
Never Lost AgainBill Kilday10h 1m4.4 (805)$29 · $0.00
How the Internet HappenedBrian McCullough13h 28m4.3 (2.7K)$23 · $0.00
Collected Writings of Nikola TeslaNikola Tesla, Thomas Commerford Martin21h 50m4.3 (1.7K)$1 · $0.00
Just AspireAjai Chowdhry9h 13m4.4 (260)$29 · $0.00
The Little Book of AliensAdam Frank8h 20m4.3 (1.3K)$26 · $0.00
The inventions, researches and writings of Nikola Tesla (Annotated)Thomas Commerford Martin16h 59m4.3 (1.3K)$2 · $0.00
KargilV.P. Malik15h 18m4.3 (2K)$24 · $0.00
Experiments with Alternating CurrentsNikola Tesla9h 6m4.3 (874)$1 · $0.00
Fire on the HorizonTom Shroder, John Konrad8h 23m4.3 (858)$26 · $0.00
The Smell of Kerosene (Annotated)National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Donald L. Mallick, Peter W. Merlin11h 32m4.3 (523)$2 · $0.00
The Boy Who Harnessed the WindWilliam Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer10h 5m4.2 (78.9K)$29 · $0.00
Across the Airless WildsEarl Swift10h 8m4.3 (1.3K)$29 · $0.00
Console WarsBlake J. Harris20h 41m4.2 (13.7K)$46 · $0.00
Improvised Munitions HandbookU.S. Department of Defense4h 49m4.3 (1.6K)$1.99 · $0.00
Escaping GravityLori Garver10h 54m4.2 (2.2K)$20 · $0.00
You may also like
The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx1h 36m3.9 (239.6K)$5 · $0.00
Critique of the Gotha Programme (Annotated)Karl Marx2h 44m4.3 (12.1K)$1.99 · $0.00
All It Takes Is GutsWalter E. Williams5h 53m4.3 (282)$14 · $0.00
BauhausMichael Siebenbrodt, Lutz Schöbe7h 22m4.2 (265)$18 · $0.00
Socialism Is EvilJustin T. Haskins2h 16m4.4 (385)$15 · $0.00
Seeing Like a StateJames C. Scott16h 5m4.3 (10.6K)$25
The DIM HypothesisLeonard Peikoff17h 34m4.4 (508)$23 · $0.00
A Contribution to The Critique Of The Political Economy (Annotated)Karl Marx11h 7m4.0 (480)$1.99 · $0.00
CAPITAL (All 3 Books)Karl Marx98h 2m4.5 (3.3K)$1 · $0.00
10 Books Every Conservative Must ReadBenjamin Wiker PhD10h 34m4.2 (827)$20 · $0.00
Revolution and Other EssaysJack London6h 8m4.2 (262)$2.30
False Premise, False PromiseSally C. Pipes4h 1m3.9 (76)$15
War of the ClassesJack London3h 43m3.6 (152)$2 · $0.00
Futuria Fantasia (Illustrated Edition)Henry Hasse, Antony Corvais, Guy Amory, Erick Freyor, Emil Petaja, E.T. Pine, Ross Rockylyn, Lyle Monroe, J.E. Kelleam, Hank Kuttner, J.H. Haggard, Ron Reynolds, Damon Knight, Hannes V. Bok, Ray Bradbury3h 16m4.0 (16)$2 · $0.00
AnticipationsH. G. Wells6h 59m3.4 (118)$2.30 · $0.00
General History of ConnecticutSamuel Peters10h 8m$2 · $0.00
Creative Impulse in Industry: A Proposition for EducatorsHelen Marot1h 47m$2 · $0.00
Russian Avant-GardeEvgueny Kovtun3h 23m4.4 (32)$15 · $0.00
Minerva's OwlHarold Adams Innis1h 38m$2 · $0.00
The Great Presidential DebatesSpeechWorks7h 55m4.3 (11)$20