Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

Palo Alto traces the history of Silicon Valley from railroads to microchips, examining how Northern California evolved over 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism. Malcolm Harris explores the ideologies, technologies, and policies engineered in the region, including IQ tests, the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory, alongside the development of the Internet and computers. The book presents Silicon Valley as both a place of temperate weather, educated and enterprising people, and world-changing corporations, and simultaneously as a toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds that forms an integral part of the capitalist world system. Harris traces how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into the 21st century. The book concludes with a proposition for changing course.