Coding Capitalism

Devin Kennedy puts the computer back into the heart of the story of postwar American capitalism, showing how digital disruptions reshaped the factory, the firm, and the Wall Street trading floor decades before the ascendance of Big Tech and the age of AI. Deeply researched and vividly told, this is an essential, fresh chapter in the history of the modern high-tech economy. -- Margaret O’Mara, author of <i>The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America</i> Coding Capitalism is a remarkable achievement: an impressive, synthetic overview of forty years of computational practices in industry, management science, and finance. For historians of computing, business, and finance, this book will connect many dots. -- Paul N. Edwards, author of <i>A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming</i> The histories of capitalism and computing are usually told separately. Kennedy powerfully shows that in the postwar era, neither field can be understood without deep engagement with the other. An indispensable book on a subject that couldn't be more timely. -- Angus Burgin, author of <i>The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression</i> Prior to this wondrous book, gifted sociologists either provided evocative, magisterial sweeps of digital technology and capitalism (James Beniger and Manuel Castells), or rich, domain-centered slices (Donald MacKenzie). Kennedy’s offers something different, a deeply researched, archival-based, nuanced history of computing, capitalism, and political economy. His Coding Capitalism is a gem, as insightful as it is elegant. It will have a shelf life of decades. -- Jeffrey R. Yost, author of <i>Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry</i>