Palo Alto
Palo Alto is the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley that examines how and why Northern California evolved in a particular, consequential way it did. In this book, journalist and editor Malcolm Harris traces 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.
RECOGNITIONS FOR THE BOOK
The New York Times's Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Salon's Best Books of 2023
Bloomberg's Best Books of 2023
The Next Big Idea Club's Must-Read Books of 2023
Vulture's, LA Times, Esquire's, Nylon's, Alta's, The Million's, and Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2023
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
"Malcolm Harris's singular and brilliant PALO ALTO is a geologic survey of the bedrock of imperial violence that lies beneath the surface of some of the country's wealthiest ZIP Codes."
―Walter Johnson, Winthrop Professor of History and African American Studies at Harvard University and author of The Broken Heart of America
"Extraordinary. In lucid, personal, often funny, and always insightful prose, Malcolm Harris finds the driving thrust of reaction not in capitalism’s left-behind regions but in its vanguard: California, and specifically Silicon Valley."
―Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of Myth
"Engaging and unsettling."
―Bethanne Patrick, LA TIMES, Most Anticipated Books of February 2023
"Like Silicon Valley, this book promises a lot, but unlike Silicon Valley, Harris is far more likely to deliver with this 'radical proposition for how we might begin to change course' to escape from the wasteland of technological progress."
―Isle McElroy, VULTURE
"A rollicking 600+ history that runs the gamut from antiwar movements to racial genetics to the Hewlett Packard garage."
―MIT Technology Review