Episode Details

Ahead of an ACFM Trip about the internet, Keir Milburn is joined by Malcolm Harris to talk about the unique political history of his hometown of Palo Alto, the intellectual laboratory for a century of American hegemony.

The Kids These Days author tells a story that connects the founding of California, the violent removal of its native population, Stanford University’s eugenicist agenda and the parallel emergence of Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.

Is the entire project of personal computing and the internet tainted by this brutal history?

Malcolm’s book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, is out now.