No book could be more timely. As concern grows daily about the impact of technology on the planet, Brian Van Norman traces the origins of the first organised resistance to machinery during the infancy of the Industrial Revolution in England. His evocation of the Luddite movement in its Yorkshire heartland is vivid and inspiring. The passing of an old way of life before the Juggernaut of economic ?progress? is portrayed through a convincing cast of characters aligned on both sides of what the writer accurately depicts as naked class war.Van Norman succeeds in representing their fears of a rapidly changing world beyond their control and the doomed path their attempted resistance has forced them along.Jane Austen meets Quentin Tarantino. -- Alan Brooke, Huddersfield Local Historical Society.