The Computer Boys Take Over

The Computer Boys Take Over

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February 25, 2014 1260 × 521 cropped-ibm-computer-people11.jpg

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Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise

In The Computer Boys Take Over, historian Nathan Ensmenger traces the rise to power of the computer expert in modern American society. He follows the history of computer programming from its origins as low-status, largely feminized labor in the secret wartime computing projects through its reinvention as a glamorous “black art” practiced by “computer cowboys” in the 1950s through its rationalization in the 1960s as the academic discipline of computer science and the software engineering profession.

His rich and nuanced portrayal of the men and women (a surprising number of the “computer boys” were, in fact, female) who built their careers around the novel technology of electronic computing explores issues of power, identity, and expertise that have only become more significant to our increasingly computerized society. His detailed analysis of the pervasive “software crisis” rhetoric of the late 1960s shows how seemingly technical debates about how to manage large-scale software development projects reflected deeper concerns about the growing power and influence of technical specialists in corporate, academic, and governmental organizations.

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