Customer Reviews

Pentagon Of Power: The Myth Of The Machine, Vol. II

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lewis Mumford was one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, and the two-volume set Myth of the Machine (Volume 1 is Technics and Human Development; and Volume 2 is The Pentagon of Power) are probably his most important books: the summation of his life's work. In writing as elegant as it is clear, Mumford makes plain the death urge that has always underlain civilization, which Mumford calls "the machine," and later "the megamachine." This is a social structure organized not around any organic human needs, but around the "needs" of the machines that have come to characterize and control our lives. These are crucial, incisive, devastating books. I cannot praise them highly enough.

Nobody writes like this anymore. I hadn't expected the eminent urban historian to write such a brilliant paranoiac tract against the System and Established Order. Although often redundant, Mumford makes a heroic attempt at explaining the current problems of our times, with roots in the Middle Ages, and perhaps even the Age of the Pyramids. He echoes contempories like Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm and Marshall McLuhan, but instead of taking a Marxist, psychological or media perspective, he takes the more general view of an urbanist. The arguments are quite paralell, although considerably more holistic at times. One recognizes critiques that were earlier or later articulated by not only Marxists, but also feminists, environmentalists, and anti-Imperialists. There are also anticipations of the New Age Movement! (See Fitjof Capra's "the Turning Point.")In short, this massive volume impressively combines much historical and cultural material in its critique of Modern Western Civilization. Although the tone of the book is quite bleak -- we would all appear to be trapped in this Megamachine, the High Technology of the Power Elites -- one also senses a hope towards last chapters that an alternative is possible. He seems to suggest a New Age style withdrawal, rather than any kind of organized resistance. Draw your own conclusions.

I can't really be bothered to say much. Basically, if this sort of subject is the kind of thing that appeals to you then I suppose you should read it. If you really want to.