The Insatiable Machine

“Nowhere else will you find a guide through the rise and rise of capitalism that is at once so rigorous in conceptualization yet breezy in style; comprehensive in breadth yet attentive to telling detail.” – Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift
“Jackson is a lucid and engaging writer, demonstrating a mastery of this fast-growing field.… What truly sets The Insatiable Machine apart from a crowded field, however, is the incisiveness of [his] analysis. Wry, knowing, and with little patience for too-neat explanations or just-so bromides, Jackson darts nimbly from epoch to epoch, crisis to crisis, bringing sense and satisfaction to some five centuries of history.” – Scott W. Stern - New Republic
“A monumental and passionate indictment of the economic system that has created incomparable wealth and innovation but has gutted the democratic systems and planet that sustained it. The Insatiable Machine is a dramatic, brilliant, and even tragically entertaining overview of capitalism’s epic rise and triumph.” – Jacob Soll, author of Free Market
“A refreshing contrast with recent histories that refuse to clearly define capitalism.… [Trevor Jackson] urges engagement with history in order for people to collectively realize that their common interests point to a confrontation with capital.” – Daniel Colligan - Jacobin
“The Insatiable Machine is an unvarnished look at the death and destruction that have followed the development of the economic system that controls our lives, often threatens them and invariably increases the cost of maintaining them. But it is also a road map in the ‘struggle for a more equal world and a better future.’ [Jackson] offers much to consider as we enter that struggle ‘in community and solidarity with those who came before us.’” – Ron Verzuh - Rabble Review
“The Insatiable Machine might end a century before its publication date, but what seems like distant history has urgent and obvious relevance today.” – Lila Thulin - Berkeley News
“While wage labor and financial instruments like loans and stocks feel unremarkable today, [Jackson] reminds us that ‘it wasn’t always this way.’ Capitalism is not natural, timeless, or inevitable.” – Steven Rodriguez - New Books Network
“Capitalism and mass consumption are not the only ways to live, and Jackson prompts readers to recognize that they have the power to bring about change. Readers who are curious about the history, economics, and the environmental impact of capitalism will find this book interesting.” – Booklist
“A lucid history that invites readers to consider how human life might be organized otherwise—no easy task.” – Kirkus Reviews
“The Insatiable Machine provides a remarkably wide-ranging history of how capitalism came to be the global norm, through invention, violence, empire, and the unexpected consequences of myriad decisions. Now, Trevor Jackson argues, its environmental effects will destroy the world it created. His lucid, hugely knowledgeable tour through four centuries can help us think about what the future might be.” – Joshua B. Freeman, author of Behemoth
“Trevor Jackson is one of our most laser-eyed critics of the mystifications wrapped around today’s market society. Now he gives us a look back across the centuries with a vexed message—capitalism is insatiable, but it is not inevitable.” – Quinn Slobodian, author of Crack-Up Capitalism

Trevor Jackson is an economic historian at University of California, Berkeley. He also writes for The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Dissent, and The Baffler. He is the author of the monograph Impunity and Capitalism. He lives in Berkeley, California.

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