Deep Humanities: Silicon Politics – Margaret O’Mara

Live from Hammer Theatre Center

November 7, 2018 @ 7:00pm

Margaret O’Mara is Professor of History at the University of Washington. Her books include Cities of Knowledge (Princeton, 2005), Pivotal Tuesdays (Penn Press, 2015), and a forthcoming history of the American technology industry and its relationship with the worlds of politics and finance. O’Mara is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians and a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education. She received her MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from Northwestern University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in the Clinton White House and served as a contributing researcher at the Brookings Institution.

 

Behind current headlines about tech’s disruption of American politics and privacy lies a largely hidden political history that spans more than seven decades. Drawing from her forthcoming book, Margaret O’Mara talks about the relationships between the Valley, Sacramento, and Washington DC that reshaped American politics and finance in the modern age.