W. Patrick McCray is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the author of README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (2025). He currently holds the Kluge Chair of Technology and Society at the Library of Congress.
W. Patrick McCray
Articles
From Domination to Derision
W. Patrick McCray surveys Matthew Wisnioski’s description of the United States’ evolution—and devolution—into a nation obsessed with innovation.
Dirty Digits and “Pleasant Landscapes”: On Jason A. Heppler’s “Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism”
After reading Jason A. Heppler’s “Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism,” Patrick McCray decides that Silicon Valley should really be called Arsenic Valley.
The Bargaining Chips Are … Chips: On Chris Miller’s “Chip War”
Historian of technology Patrick McCray describes Chris Miller’s “Chip War” as “an account of how chips became a strategically vital resource whose importance is overlooked at our peril.” Miller has placed his own chips on this point. His bet has largely paid off, according to McCray.
On Floating Upstream
In a review of Markoff’s biography of Stewart Brand, W. Patrick McCray notes that Brand’s ability to recognize and cleave to power explains a great deal of his career.
No Geniuses Here
W. Patrick McCray praises Eric Hintz’s new book on America’s independent inventors in the 20th century.
Silicon Valley’s Hidden Voices
W. Patrick McCray lauds two new books for showing how Silicon Valley’s success and image are based on obscuring certain people.
Foggy Notions
W. Patrick McCray on “Rational Fog” by historian M. Susan Lindee. It addresses how “scientific knowledge and military applications meet, maraud, and maim.”
Selling a Charismatic Technology
Historian of technology Patrick McCray reviews Morgan Ames’s new book on the MIT Media Lab’s One Laptop per Child program.
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