English language
Published Aug. 22, 2023 by Little Brown & Company.
Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing. Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system.
In PALO ALTO, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory. The Internet and computers, too. It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. PALO ALTO is an urgent …
Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing. Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system.
In PALO ALTO, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory. The Internet and computers, too. It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. PALO ALTO is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course.
Cuenta la historia de Palo Alto con un detalle que lo hace apabullante: muchos nombres y datos hasta el punto de que pierdes el hilo. Eso sí, si le echas paciencia te enteras de mucha cosa interesante. He echado en falta más fuerza en las conclusiones o propuestas, que son bastante flojas al final. Te tiene que interesar mucho el tema para tragártelo, pero si te interesa échale un vistazo.
I learned some new things about the history of Silicon Valley from this book. The most valuable sections were at the beginning of the book, which talk about the earlier history of the founding of Palo Alto and Stanford, and its connection to the "robber barons" of that time.
Once we got into the 60s and later, much of the content I was aware of, and for some of the bits I already knew about, I felt like Harris is trying a bit too hard to stretch things to fit his narrative. That in itself is annoying enough, but it also made me more skeptical about the parts of the history I'm not as familiar with.
The writing is below-average. Harris tries hard for evocative "creative non-fiction" style prose and pretty much never hits his mark. This book very badly needed an editor.
I only made it to the end …
I learned some new things about the history of Silicon Valley from this book. The most valuable sections were at the beginning of the book, which talk about the earlier history of the founding of Palo Alto and Stanford, and its connection to the "robber barons" of that time.
Once we got into the 60s and later, much of the content I was aware of, and for some of the bits I already knew about, I felt like Harris is trying a bit too hard to stretch things to fit his narrative. That in itself is annoying enough, but it also made me more skeptical about the parts of the history I'm not as familiar with.
The writing is below-average. Harris tries hard for evocative "creative non-fiction" style prose and pretty much never hits his mark. This book very badly needed an editor.
I only made it to the end because I switched half-way to an audiobook version, so I was able to listen while doing chores or crafting, saving the book from feeling like a waste of time.
It's long and it gets repetitive, but it's also insightful, incisive, and snarky. It leans on some connections a bit harder than I think makes sense, buys into Marxist historiography in a stricter way than I'm sold on, but sheds a lot of great light on the connections between capital, technology, militarism, and colonialism.
whatever else you say about this book there's no denying how much work has gone into researching it. its absurdly detailed and yokes together an enormous amount of ecological / economic data with biographies of individuals (though it has to be said: the emphasis falls far more on the latter than in the case of the work of its most obvious influence Mike Davis, particularly as it goes along) to render the straight line that exists from California's exterminationist, white supremacist frontier capitalism to contemporary Silicon Valley.
this is its greatest asset and its greatest liability. the book is too long, every three paragraphs should have been condensed into one. if we could spend less time finding out about how Herbert Hoover courted his wife we could have kept a lock on what he actually is; a component in a broader process. If Harris had done this he'd've gotten as …
whatever else you say about this book there's no denying how much work has gone into researching it. its absurdly detailed and yokes together an enormous amount of ecological / economic data with biographies of individuals (though it has to be said: the emphasis falls far more on the latter than in the case of the work of its most obvious influence Mike Davis, particularly as it goes along) to render the straight line that exists from California's exterminationist, white supremacist frontier capitalism to contemporary Silicon Valley.
this is its greatest asset and its greatest liability. the book is too long, every three paragraphs should have been condensed into one. if we could spend less time finding out about how Herbert Hoover courted his wife we could have kept a lock on what he actually is; a component in a broader process. If Harris had done this he'd've gotten as close as is possible to get to the quality of Mike Davis if you're not Mike Davis.
the designation 'millenial Mike Davis' is true in another sense, the righteous force of his prose here gives way to an omnipresent twitterish sark with precocious and over-familiar colloquialisms. it's less effective and at this length, a bit obnoxious
Very good on the whole, although a bit of a slog. I especially appreciated the early history of California, which was much better than the whitewashed version I got in school. The bits on Stanford and Palo Alto history were enlightening as well. By the time it got to silicon valley, it was mostly stuff I was already aware of, but still historically accurate and worthwhile criticism.
man harris really needs an editor. really enjoy the through lines, slogged through a lot of the details
