Silicon Valley, a small place with few identifiable geologic or                  geographic features, has achieved a mythical reputation in a very short time. The                  modern material culture of the Valley may be driven by technology, but it also                  encompasses architecture, transportation, food, clothing, entertainment,                  intercultural exchanges, and rituals.Combining a reporter's instinct for a good                  interview with traditional archaeological training, Christine Finn brings the                  perspectives of the past and the future to the story of Silicon Valley's present                  material culture. She traveled the area in 2000, a period when people's fortunes                  could change overnight. She describes a computer's rapid trajectory from useful tool                  to machine to be junked to collector's item. She explores the sense that whatever                  one has is instantly superseded by the next new thing -- and the effect this has on                  economic and social values. She tells stories from a place where fruit-pickers now                  recycle silicon chips and where more money can be made babysitting for post-IPO                  couples than working in a factory. The ways that people are working and adapting,                  are becoming wealthy or barely getting by, are visible in the cultural landscape of                  the fifteen cities that make up the area called "Silicon Valley."

Artifacts: An Archaeologist's Year in Silicon Valley PDF

The list of books you might like