Iain Boal

Iain Boal is an Irish social historian of technics and the commons, based as an independent scholar in Berkeley, California and London.

Biography

He is one of the co-founders of the Retort collective, an association of radical writers, teachers, artists, and activists, which has existed in the Bay Area for the past two decades. He co-authored Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, along with T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts. He co-edited Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information. And he is working on a book about The Long Theft: Episodes in the History of Enclosure. He is also the editor of Archives of Dissent, to be published by PM Press. In 2012, he published The Green Machine - a world history of the bicycle.

Personal life

He is married to the archivist Gillian Boal.

Publications

• Boal, Iain and James Brook, Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information City, (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995)
• As member of Retort, Blood for Oil? (2005)^[1]
• As member of Retort, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War^[2]

References