January 03, 2024 #publications
I am pleased to note that the 3rd Edition of our book Computer: A History of the Information Machine has been translated into Italian and Japanese. And so, if you can read those languages, you can now order
May 20, 2021 #publications
The website Fast Company posted an excerpt of my chapter from Your Computer is on Fire today. The excerpt is from my discussion of the continuity between the industrial and informational economy,... <more>
February 14, 2021 #publications
I am immensely proud to be part of the new volume Your Computer is on Fire, published by MIT Press and edited by Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks and Kavita Philip. This... <more>
December 30, 2018 #publications
As part of a special issue of the journal Technology & Culture exploring new directions in the history of computing, my article on The Environmental History of Computing has finally been published! Describing the various ways in which... <more>
July 31, 2016 #publications
From the very earliest days of electronic computing, flowcharts have been used to represent the conceptual structure of complex software systems. In much of the literature on software development, the flowchart serves as the central design... <more>
November 10, 2015 #publications
One of the most far-reaching and influential aspects of my research on the labor history of computing has been my work on women in computing. In a recent article entitled “Beards, Sandals, and Other Signs of Rugged Individualism”: Masculine... <more>
July 28, 2013 #publications #research #media
My article “Is Chess the Drosophila of AI? a Social History of an Algorithm” (Social Studies of Science, 2012) was recently awarded the 2013 Maurice Daumas Prize by the... <more>
March 15, 2013 #publications
The third edition of the classic Computer: A History of the Information Machine has a cover, a website, and a publication date. When Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray published the... <more>
November 06, 2012 #publications
The latest issue of Technology and Culture is out, and features an essay of mine entitled “The Digital Construction of Technology: Rethinking the History of Computers in Society,” in which, among... <more>
August 08, 2012 #publications
The latest edition of The Computer Boys Take Over is out, this time in paperback. You can also buy the Kindle Edition or the original hardcover.
From the updated... <more>
May 31, 2012 #publications
Osiris is the annual special-issue companion to Isis, the premier journal of the history of science. In preparation for the upcoming issue on Masculinities in Science, the Philadelphia Area Consortium for the History of Science [PACHS] held... <more>
February 20, 2012 #publications
In the most recent edition of the Chicago Law Review, two former University of Pennsylvania colleagues and I published a long (20,000 word) review/response to Timothy Wu’s recent book, The Master Switch. At the heart of the review is... <more>
January 09, 2012 #publications
Update: The Kindle Edition of The Computer Boys Take Over is now available on Amazon!
December 05, 2011 #publications
October 21, 2011 #publications
Update: The “Chess as Drosophila” article was recently awarded the 2013 Maurice Daumas Prize.
My article “Is Chess the Drosophila of AI? A Social History of an Algorithm” is now available as an... <more>
September 09, 2011 #publications
March 22, 2011 #publications
In this month’s Communications of the ACM, I have a short “historical reflection” on the recruitment and training of programmers in the 1950s. The essay is a... <more>
January 27, 2011 #publications
Last year I worked with two students at the School of Information at Indiana University on a piece called “Sports Fans and their Information Gathering Habits: How Media Technologies Have Brought Fans... <more>
November 21, 2010 #publications
Actually, the computer boys have lots of websites. But my book, The Computer Boys Take Over Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise now has its own website.
September 09, 2010 #publications
A new anthology exploring the history and sociology of women in computing that developed out of the Charles Babbage Institute conference is now available from Wiley. My contribution is... <more>
August 21, 2010 #publications
The “computer revolution” of the mid-20th century is widely considered to be one of the defining moments of contemporary history. And yet very little is known about its principal revolutionaries, the computer... <more>
February 20, 2009 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger, “Software as History Embodied,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 31:1 (2009), 88-91.
January 20, 2009 #publications
Oral history interview with Peter Wegner, emeritus professor of computer science at Brown University, and Fellow of the ACM.
February 10, 2008 #publications
UPDATE: The Internet and American Business is now out in paperback
Winner of the 2008 Choice Magazine award for outstanding academic title.
<img class=”left border src=”/nensmeng/images/internet-business-sm.jpg)”>
It’s finally here! The Internet and American Business has arrived via... <more>
November 10, 2007 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger, “Computers as Ethical Objects,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29:3 (2007), 86-88.
May 10, 2007 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger, “Resistance is Futile? Reluctant and Selective Users of the Internet” in P. Ceruzzi and W. Aspray, The Commercialization of the Internet and Its Impact on American Business (MIT Press, forthcoming)
Download the pdf of the draft version... <more>
November 21, 2004 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger, “Open Source’s Lessons for Historians,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:4 (2004), 103-104.
November 21, 2004 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger, “Power to the people: toward a social history of computing,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:1(2004), 95-96.
April 18, 2003 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger. Letting the ‘computer boys’ take over: Technology and the politics of organizational transformation. International Review of Social History, 48(S11):153-180, 2003.
May 10, 2002 #publications
In April 2000, the International Conference on the History of Computing hosted a special conference on the history of software. The goal was to set an agenda for future scholarship in the history of information processing.... <more>
March 21, 2001 #publications
Nathan Ensmenger. “The ‘question of professionalism’ in the computer fields.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 4(23):56-73, 2001.
