The Turmoil

Bibbs Sheridan feels the shadow of Industry pressing against his delicate senses, caught between a world that demands his body’s submission and a self that clings to inner life. Tarkington’s The Turmoil reveals how Industry’s relentless machine reshapes not just cities but the very Self, erasing the categories through which we understand human worth. It exposes the lie that progress and cultivation can coexist—because Industry doesn’t just threaten the soul from outside; it redefines what it means to be human from within, transforming the Self into a cog in a vast, indifferent system. Contemporary figures like Vladimir Putin exploit this same myth: that relentless expansion justifies any means—yet Tarkington shows how such dehumanization is built into the Shadow of Industry itself, and how it demands a reckoning we dare not ignore.