Person

Malcolm Harris

Bylines

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
Palo Alto’s First Tech Giant Was a Horse Farm

The region has been in the disruption business for nearly 150 years.

by Malcolm Harris via The Atlantic on February 8, 2023
Just Beans

What was ethical consumption under capitalism?

by Malcolm Harris via The Drift on October 20, 2022
The Sick Society

The story of a regional ruling class that struck a devil’s bargain with disease, going beyond negligence to cultivate semi-annual yellow fever epidemics.

by Malcolm Harris, Kathryn Olivarius via n+1 on September 2, 2022
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
Ten Years After the Crash, We Are Still Living in the World It Brutally Remade

A seismic reading of the financial earthquake and its aftershocks, including those that still jolt us today.

by Christopher Caldwell, Malcolm Harris, Frank Rich, Timothy Shenk, Hanna Rosin, Rachael Combe, Sarah Leonard, Lauren Levy, Heather Havrilesky, Allison P. Davis via Intelligencer on August 5, 2018
Did you know the CIA _____?

Errol Morris and the hot cold war.

by Malcolm Harris via n+1 on March 7, 2018
The Birth of the Ku Klux Brand

A new book re-traces the origins of the 19th-century KKK, which began as a social club before swiftly moving to murder.

by Malcolm Harris via Pacific Standard on February 19, 2016

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

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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

Illustration of workers designed like they are a part of a technological apparatus.

How Stanford Helped Capitalism Take Over the World

The ruthless logic driving our economy can be traced back to 19th-century Palo Alto.

by Sammy Feldblum via The Chronicle of Higher Education on July 20, 2023

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

Book cover of Malcolm Harris's "Palo Alto."

The "Here" of Magical Thinking

A new book offers a critical history of Silicon Valley's blend of California idealism and exploitation.

by David Helps via Protean on March 1, 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

The Kids Aren’t Alright

A crucial new work of generational analysis explores how society turned millennials into human capital.

by Natasha Lennard via Dissent on January 1, 2018

Image of a young girl using an iPhone.

What Makes a Millennial?

The defining boundaries and problematic categorizations carried by our culture's treatment of the label "millennial."

by Sarah Wasserman via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 18, 2022

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