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A Silicon Valley office building.

Better, Faster, Stronger

Two recent books illuminate the dark foundations of Silicon Valley.
by Ben Tarnoff via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023
Malcolm Harris, left, and the cover of his book "Palo Alto," right. (Photo by Julia Burke)

The Obscene Invention of California Capitalism

A new history examines Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, the West Coast's settler ideology, and recent turbulence in the world of tech.
by Malcolm Harris, Emma Hager via The Nation on March 15, 2023
Technology and California graphic.

Blame Palo Alto

From Stanford to Silicon Valley, a small town in California spread tech’s gospel of data and control.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on February 6, 2023

Computers Were Supposed to Be Good

Joy Lisi Rankin’s book on the history of personal computing looks at the technology’s forgotten democratic promise.
by Gillian Terzis via The Nation on January 30, 2019

Sex, Beer, and Coding: Inside Facebook’s Wild Early Days in Palo Alto

Mark Zuckerberg and his buddies built a corporate proto-culture that continues to influence the company today.
by Adam Fisher via Wired on July 10, 2018
A painting of a large camera on a film set, surrounded by green screens.

Casual Viewing

Why Netflix looks like that.
by Will Tavlin via n+1 on December 16, 2024
Computer terminal with BASIC code on screen, surrounded by a cartoon potion, cauldron, and lips wearing a wizard's hat, in a magical lair.

Back to BASIC—the Most Consequential Programming Language in the History of Computing

Coding was a preserve of elites, until BASIC hit the streets.
by Clive Thompson via Wired on July 29, 2024
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Alt Text

A brief history of the textfile, and the production of conspiracy theories on the internet.
by Walter J. Scheirer via HNN on May 8, 2024
Margaret Mead and Joe Rogan.

Turn on, Tune in, Write Code

How psychedelics went from counterculture to grind culture.
by Geoff Shullenberger via The New Atlantis on April 12, 2024
Elon Musk's face edited onto Apple advertisements.

A Bullshit Genius

On Walter Isaacson’s biographical project.
by Oscar Schwartz via The Drift on March 12, 2024
Cartoon of ghosts surrounded by environmentally destructive technology.

The Palo Alto System

A new history dispenses with the sentimental lore and examines how Palo Alto has long been the seedbed for exploitation, chaos, and ecological degradation.
by Jonathan Lethem via The Nation on April 17, 2023
Image of a woman sitting in front of the computer

The Intimate and Interconnected History of the Internet

A new book offers a picture of an early Internet defined by community, experimentation, and lack of privacy. 
by Kevin Driscoll, Jacob Bruggeman via The Nation on October 14, 2022
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on stage giving a presentation below a screen showing pictures of people connected by the Facebook network.

How Capitalism—Not a Few Bad Actors—Destroyed the Internet

Twenty-five years of neoliberal political economy are to blame for today's regime of surveillance advertising, and only public policy can undo it.
by Matthew Crain via Boston Review on August 3, 2022
Collage of of Stewart Brand peeking out from behind the earth.

Stewart Brand’s Dubious Futurism

What did the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog stand for?
by Malcolm Harris via The Nation on June 13, 2022
Book cover of Whole Earth, featuring an image of Stewart Brand backlit and walking through a door, encircled by the earth.

On Floating Upstream

Markoff’s biography of Stewart Brand notes that Brand’s ability to recognize and cleave to power explains a great deal of his career.
by W. Patrick McCray via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 22, 2022
People gathered around an electronic contraption with lightbulbs.

Ideas of the PMC

A review of three new books that in various ways track the rise of the "Professional Managerial Class."
by Michael J. Kramer via Society for U.S. Intellectual History on March 6, 2022
illustration of people wearing different historical/cultural hats, each in their own frame, with a keyboard & mouse

Sid Meier and the Meaning of “Civilization”

How one video game tells the story of an industry.
by Neima Jahromi via The New Yorker on September 22, 2021
Image of plastic human figurine hunched over at a desk and computer.

How the Personal Computer Broke the Human Body

Decades before 'Zoom fatigue' broke our spirits, the so-called computer revolution brought with it a world of pain previously unknown to humankind.
by Laine Nooney via Vice on March 12, 2021
Abstract illustration of life working remotely.

The Perpetual Disappointment of Remote Work

What the troubled history of telecommuting tells us about its future.
by Richard Cooke via The New Republic on January 4, 2021

Built to Last

When overwhelmed unemployment insurance systems malfunctioned, governments blamed the 60-year-old programming language COBOL. But what really failed?
by Mar Hicks via Logic on August 31, 2020

The Failed Political Promise of Silicon Valley

Tech was meant to help us transcend our most intractable problems. What went wrong?
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The New Republic on September 27, 2019
Sign for the Silicon Valley Financial Center.

The Hidden History of How the Government Kick-Started Silicon Valley

It’s time to move past the tech sector’s creator myths.
by Margaret O'Mara, Hope Reese via OneZero on July 8, 2019

The Innovation Cult

The function of the "innovation" buzzword is to sustain the myth that business genius creates society’s wealth.
by John Patrick Leary via Jacobin on April 16, 2019

We Built a Broken Internet. Now We Need to Burn It to the Ground.

Silicon Valley veteran Mike Monteiro explains how designers destroyed the world.
by Mike Monteiro via BuzzFeed News on March 31, 2019

Counter-Histories of the Internet

Our ethics and desires can shape digital networks at least as forcefully as those networks influence us.
by Marta Figlerowicz via Public Books on February 25, 2019

Finding Lena, the Patron Saint of JPEGs

In 1972, a photo of a Swedish Playboy model was used to create the JPEG. The model herself was mostly a mystery—until now.
by Linda Kinstler via Wired on January 31, 2019
Douglas Engelbart wearing an earpiece, sitting at a computer, in 1968.

The Future, Revisited: “The Mother of All Demos” at 50

How the ’60s counterculture gave birth to personal computers and the vast tech industry that builds and sells them.
by Andy Horowitz via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 8, 2018

“Google Was Not a Normal Place”

A behind-the-scenes account of the most important company on the Internet, from grad-school all-nighters to extraordinary global power.
by Adam Fisher via The Hive on July 10, 2018

Designers On Acid: The Tripping Californians Who Paved The Way To Our Touchscreen World

Ever wondered why email, trash cans, Google Docs and desktops look the way they do? The answer lies in 1960s hippie culture.
by Oliver Wainwright via The Guardian on May 11, 2017
Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It" poster.
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Women at Work: A History

Women in the workplace, from 19th century domestic workers to the Rosies of World War II to the labs of Silicon Valley.
via BackStory on February 6, 2015
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