David Honigmann

The villains of Silicon Valley

Malcolm Harris is unsparing in his attack on Palo Alto’s tech giants past and present, including Leland Stanford, Herbert Hoover, William Shockley and Peter Thiel

William Shockley. [Getty Images] 
issue 20 May 2023

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

    Malcolm Harris

    riverrun, pp. 709, £30

Historians joke that some parts of the world – Crete and the Balkans, for instance– produce more history than they can consume locally. The California town of Palo Alto produces more economics than it can consume, and therefore more politics, and therefore more culture. But this comes at a price.

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