Devin Kennedy, "Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated,

and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials

and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electronic

computer as they sought to cut costs, speed up labor,

manage supply chains, and—they hoped—bring stability to the postwar

economy. Their efforts would shape early computer science and the first

applications of computer technology in manufacturing and business, with

profound consequences for workers and managers alike. By the 1960s,

practices originally developed to improve industrial efficiency were

being used by Wall Street, influencing how markets worked and even how

traders thought. Digital technology became central to finance, tying

together far-flung trading floors and automating decision making—with