Luddite and Luddism are terms of both derision and praise. Depending on context, they have been used to indicate either mindless opposition to or critical assessment of technology and science. The first Luddites were English textile workers who in...

The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying sewing machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their...

An engineering professor confronts his conflicts with technology. I AM A NEO-LUDDITE. Like the Luddites of early 19th-century England, I question and resist new technologies that will supposedly make life better and easier. How much easier can my life get? How much stuff...

...

Environmentalism: So global-warming alarmists now want to limit our use of toilet paper. What's next, one-room shacks with bamboo fences? Don't laugh. That's also on their list of recommendations.Singer Sheryl Crow says she's spent most of her save-the-planet tour of campuses "trying to come up...

Each year when the Emmys are announced, I’m surprised by how little conversation they inspire. No Emmy pools; no heated dinner-party debates over best actor in a drama; no party plans made for the night of the broadcast. Almost everyone watches television, and everyone—even the...

In the following excerpt, Webb considers the historical accuracy of Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley.

In the following essay, Fox illustrates how the Romantic poets protested against industrialization while sympathizing with Luddites and other workers displaced by emerging technology.

In the following excerpt, Thomis discusses the social and political context of the Luddite Rebellion and attempts to define exactly who the Luddites were and what they sought to achieve. He also examines inconsistencies in depictions of Luddism in writings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

With the development of technology in the British woolen industry during the early nineteenth century, new machines began doing the work of people in this field, and many workers lost their jobs. The Luddites consisted of many of these jobless men and engaged in vandalizing the very machines that made their skills obsolete. While the Luddites' tactics can be considered deplorable, their reasons for their actions elicit sympathy.