Labor Books
Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do--and How They Do It
Voices from the Valley pulls back the curtain on Silicon Valley by centering the people who actually build and maintain its digital empires. Inste…
Automation and the Future of Work
Aaron Benanav challenges the popular narrative that robots are coming for our jobs because of rapid technological advancement. Instead of blaming …
Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World
Joshua B. Freeman traces the rise and evolution of the giant factory, an institution that redefined human civilization. From the water-powered tex…
Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass – An Urgent Investigation into the Invisible Human Labor Powering AI and the Digital Economy
Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri reveal the hidden human labor that allows artificial intelligence to function. W…
Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America
Alec MacGillis presents a sweeping look at how the rise of Amazon has fundamentally reshaped the American landscape. Moving beyond a simple corpor…
Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley
Journalist Corey Pein delivers a sharp, firsthand account of his attempt to break into the tech industry by moving to San Francisco with a fake st…
Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation
David Noble challenges the popular belief that technological progress is an inevitable march toward efficiency. In this landmark study, he examine…
Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job
Gavin Mueller reclaims the history of the Luddites to explain why modern work often feels draining and invasive. While history books dismiss ninet…