The Religion of the Machine Age

by Dora Russell

FIRST EDITION, published 1983 by Routledge & Kegan Paul. xviii, 267pp, bibliography, index. The author was the wife of Bertrand Russell. Publisher's "Dora Russell's involvement in world affairs spans most of the twentieth century. Bron in 1894, she is now an inspiration for, and becoming a symbol of, movements for peace and freedom. The Religion of the Machine Age has taken 61 years to come to fruition and publication; the first chapter ('The Soul of Russia and the Body of America', which appears here as a preface) was written in 1922. The book as it has finally been written is more topical now than when it was first commissioned in 1923. Dora Russell has written a history of humankind's beliefs and ideas--a defence of right to survive in this 'machine' age of ours. She asks why, how and when humanity began to make machines at all. This leads her to survey the development of male consciousness over the centuries, ending in an almost religious worship of the machine, engendered by mathematics and science. Dora Russell's exploration encompasses history from the primitive to the present, from hunting and gathering societies to a society that has experienced the Falklands war and is now living through a new recession, in the shadow of annihilation. The book as a whole reflects the two aims which Dora Russell declares have determined her to liberate women and to try to end the Cold War."

257 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Dora Black, Lady Russell was a British author, a feminist and socialist campaigner, and the second wife of the eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell. In 1909 she joined the Heretics Society, co-founded by C. K. Ogden. It questioned traditional authorities in general and religious dogma in particular. The society helped her to discard traditional values and develop her own feminist mode of thought.

In common with other radical women of her generation she had realized the extent to which the laws regulating marriage contributed to a woman's subjugation. In her view, only parents should be bound by a social contract, and only insofar as their cooperation was required for raising their children. Implicit was her conviction that both men and women were polygamous by nature and should therefore be free, whether married or not, to engage in sexual relationships that were based on mutual love. In this she was as much an early sexual pioneer as in her fight for a woman's right to information about, and free access to, birth control methods. She regarded these as essential for women to gain control over their own lives, and eventually become fully emancipated.

In 1924, Russell campaigned passionately for birth control, joining with H. G. Wells and John Maynard Keynes in founding the Workers' Birth Control Group. She also campaigned in the Labour Party for birth control clinics, with only limited success.