Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen
Silicon Valley has emerged as the key metaphor of the innovation-led economic development in the 21st century. As the Valley’s technology monopolies and utopias expand, there is a growing need for critical histories that help to ground and contextualize the futures that are spreading from San Franci...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Pluto Journals
2022-02-01
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Series: | Prometheus |
Online Access: | https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/prometheus.37.4.0371 |
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author | Antti Tarvainen |
author_facet | Antti Tarvainen |
author_sort | Antti Tarvainen |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Silicon Valley has emerged as the key metaphor of the innovation-led economic development in the 21st century. As the Valley’s technology monopolies and utopias expand, there is a growing need for critical histories that help to ground and contextualize the futures that are spreading from San Francisco Bay. In this review essay, I suggest that a settler-colonial approach offers interesting possibilities for the creation of such histories. To demonstrate how such an approach works, I develop a settler-colonial reading of Margaret O’Mara’s recent book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (2019). By critically analysing the key metaphors in O’Mara’s celebrated book, the global and violent face of the Valley becomes visible. The settler-colonial approach, I conclude, offers one possible analytical approach to breaking the stranglehold of America-centred understanding typical of the histories of Valley. |
first_indexed | 2024-04-09T14:31:18Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-3a9bbd608dbb41f497fb5516962d3009 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 0810-9028 1470-1030 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-04-09T14:31:18Z |
publishDate | 2022-02-01 |
publisher | Pluto Journals |
record_format | Article |
series | Prometheus |
spelling | doaj.art-3a9bbd608dbb41f497fb5516962d30092023-05-03T15:28:17ZengPluto JournalsPrometheus0810-90281470-10302022-02-0137437138110.13169/prometheus.37.4.0371Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti TarvainenAntti TarvainenSilicon Valley has emerged as the key metaphor of the innovation-led economic development in the 21st century. As the Valley’s technology monopolies and utopias expand, there is a growing need for critical histories that help to ground and contextualize the futures that are spreading from San Francisco Bay. In this review essay, I suggest that a settler-colonial approach offers interesting possibilities for the creation of such histories. To demonstrate how such an approach works, I develop a settler-colonial reading of Margaret O’Mara’s recent book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (2019). By critically analysing the key metaphors in O’Mara’s celebrated book, the global and violent face of the Valley becomes visible. The settler-colonial approach, I conclude, offers one possible analytical approach to breaking the stranglehold of America-centred understanding typical of the histories of Valley.https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/prometheus.37.4.0371 |
spellingShingle | Antti Tarvainen Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen Prometheus |
title | Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen |
title_full | Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen |
title_fullStr | Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen |
title_full_unstemmed | Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen |
title_short | Margaret O’Mara, The Code. Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America reviewed by Antti Tarvainen |
title_sort | margaret o mara the code silicon valley and the remaking of america reviewed by antti tarvainen |
url | https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/prometheus.37.4.0371 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT anttitarvainen margaretomarathecodesiliconvalleyandtheremakingofamericareviewedbyanttitarvainen |