Technology can be sublime, but machines aren’t something that happens to us; they’re something we make. That is, they’re less like meteors that come crashing into our planet (actually, “billiard balls” appears to be the preferred metaphor) than like toddlers (O.K., that one’s mine): sure, they crash into you a lot, and change your life, but they didn’t come out of nowhere and, if you set your mind to it, you can teach them manners before they get to be bigger than you. “The story of the power revolution offers more than an interpretation of the origins of industrial America,” Klein writes. “It suggests another insight into the most elusive riddle of all: What is an American?” Klein’s answer to the question Crèvecoeur famously asked in 1782—“What then is this American, this new man?—is disheartening, to say the least. He is a man whose machines run roughshod. I don’t know about you, but I’d take the toddler over the meteor every time. Setting limits. They say it’s all about setting limits.
