In the near-future city of Ilium, New York, Dr. Paul Proteus is a privileged engineer-manager in a society where machines have replaced nearly all human labor. Workers live across the river in Homestead, stripped of purpose and dignity. The Shah of Bratpuhr, a foreign dignitary, tours America and sees what its citizens cannot: that ordinary people have been reduced to slaves of the machine. Paul grows disillusioned with his role in the system, joins the underground Ghost Shirt Society, and leads a doomed rebellion. The revolution briefly succeeds in Ilium before the rebels instinctively begin rebuilding the machines they just destroyed. Paul surrenders, recognizing that the human addiction to technological progress may be unbreakable.

In a near-future America, the Second Industrial Revolution has automated virtually all manufacturing and most intellectual labor. Society is divided into three rigid castes: the engineers and managers who design and oversee the machines, the military, and everyone else — the vast majority, who live ...