Rage Against the Machine. Or Don’t.

It’s unusual to be in the situation of reviewing a book no one will like. I don’t mean that literally; a handful of people will appreciate Paul Kingsnorth’s new book, Against the Machine, probably the same people who have followed his work for the past decade. I mean that “no one” in the corporate sense: No one camp or party or religious group or ideology will embrace it heartily and make it part of their identity. Kingsnorth has written something that will be difficult to bring into the service of any particular group, and in our black-and-white, if-you’re-not-for-me-you’re-against-me kind of world, that makes him everyone’s enemy.