Rebecca Solnit has lived in San Francisco since 1980, but the city she used to know is fast disappearing, ‘fully annexed’, as she puts it, by the tech firms from Silicon Valley. In this episode of the LRB podcast, Solnit reads her piece from the 8 February issue of the paper, both a eulogy for the city that’s been lost and a dissection of the dystopia that’s ... Show More
Sep 10
On Politics: Germany's Far-Right Future?
On Sunday, the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won the state election in Saxony-Anhalt with 44 per cent of the vote, the highest share for any far-right party in post-1945 Germany. Among the many surprising aspects of the result was the broad, multigenerational ... Show More
1h 4m
Sep 6
The Romantic History of the Bayeux Tapestry
The story of why, and how, an arrow ended up in Harold's eye in the Bayeux Tapestry is tied to the politics of the early 19th century, to Napoleon's ambitions and Britain's national pride, and the work of two antiquaries, Anne and Charles Stothard, who travelled to northern Franc ... Show More
59m 54s
Mar 2019
Recode Decode: Richard Walker
Historian and urbanist Richard Walker, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his latest book, Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In this episode: How California has historically been a ... Show More
55m 6s
Feb 2023
The dark history of Silicon Valley
Sean Illing speaks with Malcolm Harris, a journalist, critic, and author of the new book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Together, they discuss the weird history of the city that's birthed Stanford University, Hewlett Packard, Theranos, and the mode ... Show More
58m 13s
Nov 2022
This Is What Happens to Silicon Valley in a Downturn
The US economy may not be in a recession, but Silicon Valley, which had a mega-boom throughout the 2010s, is in a downturn. Tech stocks have tanked and almost every day there are new reports about industry layoffs. So what happens next? What happens to its unique corporate cultur ... Show More
42m 8s
Sep 2021
San Francisco and the American nightmare
Since the internet boom in the mid-90s, San Francisco has become a tech superpower, overtaking Silicon Valley. The city has more billionaires per square mile than anywhere in the US, but it also has more homeless people. Danny Fortson meets the residents of its tent cities.This p ... Show More
32m 37s