Whenever the word “technology” is mentioned, Silicon Valley comes to mind. This was not the case a few decades ago. So, what happened? Why Silicon Valley? This is the main topic of the book.

Written by Margaret O’Mara, a professor of history at the University of Washington, readers may expect dry, formal, and detailed answers to these questions. They will get the latter, but the writing style is actually interesting for the most part, and the style leans toward an informality that suits the layperson. So this book is for anybody interested in technology and its history, told through the story of the hottest spot of technology in the world: Silicon Valley.

The introduction is a bit wordy, but the rest of the book is more interesting. The book is divided into several milestones that copy the life cycle of a product: startup, launch, going public, and changing the world. Each milestone describes part of the Valley’s history. What is really useful is that the history is not only told through the story of talented entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on; government influence and funding is also intermingled in the treatment. The entrepreneurs were not working in a vacuum; they were using many inventions and technologies from the government. Don’t forget that the Internet, for example, started as a government-funded project, that is, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET).

Thus, the book is a nice mix of personal and official history, which is a more realistic and down-to-earth treatment of the history of Silicon Valley than just reading memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of successful and not-so-successful (Nobel Laureate Bill Shockley, for instance) entrepreneurs.

The book spans the timeline from the mid-1950s to 2018. It is an easy and interesting read, though some parts may be a bit boring if you are tech-savvy and well versed in the nitty-gritty of technology. But, overall, reading this book is a nice journey and time well spent.

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