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

I had very high hopes for this book, which sounded like it was really in my wheelhouse - a big picture overview, across several generations, and featuring a topic of considerable interest to me. Since moving to California about five years ago, I have often sought out books about the history of the Golden State as a way of becoming more familiar with my surroundings. But bad writing is bad writing and no book, regardless of its merits, can survive it. And Palo Alto does not have that many merits. Windy, discursive and overwritten, reading this book feels like you are listening to a sky-high hippie philosopher explain the universe. It hops from one topic to another, with a string of events related to Palo Alto, Silicon Valley or Stanford University, but does not really connect the dots. I am not someone who gets too upset when a book shows some bias - I expect it, and I should point out I agree with a lot of the arguments in this anti-capitalist screed. But even for me, the book seemed heavily biased. If you're a right winger, forget about this, you couldn't handle it. I should say I learned some things, so it confirms my feeling that no time spent reading is wasted. Early on, the author details the early career of Herbert Hoover, who proved a much more interesting figure than I expected. But as the book become more current, and entered into areas where I have read other material on the same topics, it failed to engage me. The section on Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos con, for example is nowhere near as compelling as the book Bad Blood.

If you're wondering what has gone wrong with the American experiment in democracy, or why certain politicians are fighting so hard to erase our past, you'll find a lot of answers here. This book is thoroughly researched, filled with great storytelling, and traces some of the threads though our history that chronicle the tale of a great idea for "government by the people and for the people" that was hijacked by oligarchs.

An essential work in the history of California. One of the most thoughtfully-researched and cited books I’ve ever read, and enough to motivate leaving an Amazon review. Palo Alto is an incredibly captivating read for something so academic and lengthy (reportedly reached the character limit of Google Docs). This book will be a comfort to no one, regardless of political ideology, and brings inconvenient truths to a largely and consciously whitewashed history of the bay area and California. I would appreciate a paperback.

Malcolm Harris's "Palo Alto" is worth reading for its wealth of historical detail. Readers can learn a great deal about subjects as varied as the early development of California agriculture, the formation and distinct culture of Stanford University, the extraordinary career and influence of Herbert Hoover, and the rise of the techo-elite of Silicon Valley.The book's problem is its relentless reliance upon Marxist theory to explain anything and everything about these developments. This, in turn, gives rise to two major problems.The first is its confusion of the worst abuses of capitalism, especially the financial sector, with broader capitalist economic systems. Harris seems to imply that there's an alternative to capitalism as such that can deliver prosperity to the majority of working people; the only problem is that he doesn't show that such a system has ever existed. The profit motive is simply not the unmitigated evil he portrays; on the contrary, well-regulated capitalism can indeed foster prosperity, as is shown, however imperfectly, in today's European Union and indeed in the United States from the New Deal through the early 1980s.The book's second problem is that it treats the rapacious culture of California finance capitalism as distinct. It wasn't and isn't; its flaws are shared by unregulated finance capitalism everywhere. "Shareholder value" as the principal standard for corporate governance and hostility to progressive taxation occur on a nationwide and indeed international basis.This book is worth the experience, but readers should know in advance that they're being harangued by an ideologue.

The media could not be loaded.  As someone who grew up in Palo Alto and works in tech, this book has explained so much I took for granted. A lot of people probably won't like it because it is a history, and history is often not as shiny and smooth as an iPhone (which is how people prefer to dream about Palo Alto). But to me it's unvarnished telling of the truth, without pulling punches or skipping details, is incredibly important. You can't truly understand your self or your community until you know your history, and this book is by far the best history of Silicon Valley written so far.

I was hoping for insight into the brilliant minds that have been a driving force in California and indeed, the world economy. Instead this book is nothing more than an anti-capitalist screed. The author doesn't have a single positive word to say for the innovators, but rather castigates all of them as "exploiters.A very tiresome book.

If you want to read a book that blames White men for the problems of the world, this is it! Could not get past the introduction. I was going to takr it to GoodWill but I think the trash is the best place for this thing.