INFERNAL MACHINE: Dynamite, Anarchy and the Future of Creativity

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2024

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steven Johnson returns! He's with us today to talk about his new book, "The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective," and his new day job helping Google develop AI tools for writers. 🔊 You can listen to Steven's previous appearances on this show here, here, here and here 🎧 To purchase a copy of Steven's Next Big Idea Original audiobook, "Immortality: A User's Guide," head here: https://nextbigideaclub.supportingcast.fm/immortality-a-users-guide 📩 Be sure to check out his Substack, too: https://adjacentpossible.substack.com/ 📱 If you love the show, the best way to support us is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at https://nextbigideaclub.com/ and use promo code PODCAST to get 20% off your subscription

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn presents.
0:05.0	I'm Rufus Griskam, and this is the next big idea.
0:10.0	Today, what drives history? A conversation about dynamite, anarchy, and all kinds of packages.
0:35.0	That's Stephen Johnson, reading from the opening pages of his new book, The Infernal Machine.
0:42.0	Often they arrived in tin cans. new book, The Infernal Machine.
0:43.0	Often they arrived in tin cans.
0:45.8	Emptied of the olive oil or soap or preserves the cans had originally been manufactured
0:50.7	to contain, now wedged tight with sticks of dynamite, conveyed to their target
0:56.1	location in a satchel or suitcase, accidentally left behind in the courthouse or the train station or the cathedral.
1:08.4	Stephen is describing the 25 year period 1895 to 1920 when there were 7,000 attempted bombings in New York City.
1:18.7	That's right, 7,000. And who were the bombers?
1:23.0	Socialist agitators, Russian Neolists, Irish Republicans, German saboteurs.
1:29.0	But of all the bomb throwers of the period, no group was more closely associated with the infernal
1:34.6	machines as the press came to call the bombs than the anarchists.
1:39.2	In an era when robber barons thought it perfectly reasonable to open fire on peaceful protesters who objected
1:45.2	to a 72-hour work week, dynamite-loving anarchists dreamed of a future where egalitarian communities
1:52.1	replaced brutal hierarchies.
1:54.0	The best way to draw attention to their fantasy they believed was to commit
1:58.0	horrendous acts of violence.
2:00.0	A new mythology arose among the young radicals, the propaganda of the deed.
2:06.5	Mere words were not sufficient to incite revolutionary change.
2:10.7	You needed an act of spectacular violence directed at a well-known target, a strike
	...

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