Review of Behemoth: a History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua B. Freeman

Evolution of a key determinant of the modern economy and society

As an economics journalist, I have visited factories all over the world. I saw refrigerator manufacturing lines in China that used Maoist indoctrination shaming to instill capitalist habits into its workers. I investigated child labor in Pakistan, where factories consisted of garage-sized concrete shacks, the workers sitting on straw and sewing leather …