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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

Does Journalism Have a Future?

In an era of social media and fake news, journalists who have survived the print plunge have new foes to face.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on January 22, 2019
"The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" book cover

Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

By reengineering the economy and society to their own benefit, Google and Facebook are undermining personal freedom and corroding democracy.
by Nicholas Carr via Los Angeles Review of Books on January 15, 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

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

“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
View of San Francisco from the Bay.

How Could 'The Most Successful Place on Earth' Get So Much Wrong?

A new book conjures the complexity of the Bay Area and the perils of its immense, uneven wealth.
by Richard Florida, Richard A. Walker via CityLab on July 3, 2018

Lessons From the Gilded Age

America today has a lot in common with that bygone era of monopolies and gross inequality. But will the country respond similarly?
by Sarah Jones via The New Republic on June 13, 2018

The Internet Women Made

Claire L. Evans’s new book is a bittersweet reminder that the internet used to be freer and more fun.
by Anna Wiener via The New Republic on May 1, 2018

The Pinkertons Still Never Sleep

The notorious union-busting agency has resurfaced in a telecommunications labor dispute, showing how it's adapted to the 21st century.
by Sarah Jones via The New Republic on March 23, 2018

A Brief History of Surveillance in America

With wiretapping in the headlines and smart speakers in millions of homes, a look back to the early days of eavesdropping.
by Brian Hochman, April White via Smithsonian on March 22, 2018

How Douglas Engelbart Invented the Future

Two decades before the personal computer, a shy engineer unveiled the tools that would drive the tech revolution.
by Valerie Landau via Smithsonian on January 3, 2018

One Person's History of Twitter, From Beginning to End

Twitter, valuing expansion over principles, achieved its goal of changing the world. But not in the way that it planned.
by Mike Monteiro via Medium on October 15, 2017

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

And why it was so hard to see it coming.
by Alexis C. Madrigal via The Atlantic on October 12, 2017

Commercial Surveillance State

Blame the marketers.
by Matthew Crain, Anthony Nadler via n+1 on September 27, 2017

How Women Got Crowded Out of the Computing Revolution

Blame messy history for the gender imbalance bedeviling Silicon Valley.
by Stephen Mihm via Bloomberg on August 19, 2017
Rocket launch

Is a Mission to Mars Morally Defensible Given Today’s Real Needs?

Elon Musk and the rise of Silicon Valley’s strange trickle-down science.
by Andrew Russell, Lee Vinsel via Aeon on December 1, 2016
Aerial view of Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Why Are America’s Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia?

Suburban corporate campuses have isolated themselves by design from the communities their products were supposed to impact.
by Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on April 8, 2016
Jeff Bezos

“What We Have is Capture of the Regulators’ Minds, A Much More Sophisticated Form of Capture Than Putting Money in Their Pockets”

How every major industry and marketplace in America came to be controlled by a single, monolithic player.
by Barry C. Lynn, Asher Schechter via Pro-Market on March 26, 2016
Bill Clinton in front of a poster that reads "New Democrats".

Atari Democrats

As organized labor lost strength, the Democratic Party turned to professional-class voters to shore up its base.
by Lily Geismer via Jacobin on February 8, 2016
Cubicles

The Moral Life of Cubicles

On the utopian origins of Dilbert's workspace.
by David Franz via The New Atlantis on December 1, 2008
Jeff Bezos against a red D.C. background with the Washington Post newspaper on the bottom half

Is Jeff Bezos Selling Out the Washington Post?

The Amazon founder was once the newspaper’s savior; now journalists are fleeing as the paper that brought down Nixon struggles under Trump’s second term.
by Clare Malone via The New Yorker on May 12, 2025
An illustration of a government building holding up an American home with a stylized hand.

The Good Society Department

Once upon a time, there was a federal government department that helped design and distribute tools for living the good life. What happened to that vision?
by John Last via Noema on April 3, 2025
Eliot Noyes standing outside of an IBM building.

The Complicated Legacy of Eliot Noyes

Noyes is not a household name, but his evangelism for the notion of design as a holistic strategy is so pervasive that many now take it for granted.
by Menachem Wecker via Humanities on April 2, 2025
A drawing of a man riding a train and laying down train tracks in front of him.

The Insidious Charms of the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic

You’re passionate. Purpose-driven. Dreaming big, working hard, making it happen. And now they’ve got you where they want you.
by Anna Wiener via The New Yorker on January 27, 2025
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
A computer, business documents, envelope, and a broadcast tower.

How Tech Giants Make History

AT&T’s early leaders used PR to sway public opinion, casting their monopoly as a public service and obscuring its political roots.
by Richard R. John via Pro-Market on October 10, 2024
Pastoral scene of a family in their yard.

The Strange Death of Private Life

In the early 1970s, the idea that private life meant a right to be left alone – an idea forged over centuries – began to disappear. We should mourn its absence.
by Tiffany Jenkins via Engelsberg Ideas on November 21, 2023
A banner that reads "HTG: High Tech Gays," surrounded by a crowd of people and balloons.

How Work Has Shaped the LGBTQ Community

And the ways capital took advantage of the state's policing of sexuality.
by Ryan Reft via The Metropole on September 26, 2023
AI-generated illustration of a blue neural network, surrounded by code and data graphics, against dark background.

How Machines Came to Speak (and How to Shut Them Up)

On the intertwined history of free speech law and media technology.
by Alex Sayf Cummings via Society for U.S. Intellectual History on September 24, 2023
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