History 417: Perspectives on Silicon Valley

F08

SH 560

R 2:30-5:30

 

Prof. Cyrus Mody

Humanities 309

x2553

Cyrus.Mody@rice.edu

Office hours: by appointment

 

 

Books:

 

Christophe Lécuyer, Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006).

 

Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

 

All other readings will be posted on Owl-Space.

 

Grading:          Participation:                 25%

                        Weekly                       

                          discussion papers        25%

                        Mid-term:                     25%

                        Final paper:                  25%

 

Participation: If you attend class, contribute to discussion, and demonstrate a working knowledge of the readings you will get full participation credit.  I realize that you may occasionally have to miss class or that you may feel uncomfortable speaking up in discussion.  If so, please talk to me about ways to fulfill the participation credit (e.g. short thought papers on the readings).  However, it will be easiest for you (and me) if you come to every class, ready to share your ideas and enthusiasm.  [But please be courteous and keep in mind that everyone else is in the same boat – a good class discussion is a group effort that raises everyone’s participation score, and not the result of one or two students trying to take charge.]

 

Weekly papers: I would like you to hand in a one-page discussion paper each week.  This should not take you a lot of time to write – I won’t grade on prose or coherence of argument.  Instead, concentrate on raising questions for us to discuss in class, and on asking me questions about background material that you need to understand the readings better.  These are due 24 hours before class each week.  Readings and discussion papers are assigned (and can be returned) via Owl-Space – SO PLEASE CHECK THE COURSE’S OWL-SPACE SITE REGULARLY.

 

Midterm: There will be a take-home midterm exam handed out on October 16th and due back at the beginning of class on October 23rd.  This will be worth 25% of your total grade.

 

Final paper: The history of science (and technology and engineering and medicine and agriculture and …) is much too sprawling a topic to cover adequately in one semester.  There will be characters and discoveries that you (and I) cherish that we will not have time to talk about at all.  There will be other issues which we will touch on which I hope will whet your appetite to learn more.  To try to ensure that the course covers at least some of your neglected interests, therefore, I am assigning a term paper in lieu of a final exam.  This paper will be due, in my office (or by email or Owl-Space), at 5:00 p.m. on the day that a final exam for this course would be held.

 

Note: any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustment or accommodations is requested to speak with me during the first two weeks of class.  All discussions will remain confidential.  Students with disabilities should also contact Disabled Student Services in the Ley Student Center.

 

Week of 8/28: Regions and high technology

 

Optional

 

AnnaLee Saxenian, “Chapter 2: Silicon Valley: Competition and Community,” in Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994): 29-57.

 

Week of 9/4: The Valley of the Heart’s Delight

 

We will watch part of Of Mice and Men (1992)

 

 

 

Claude S. Fischer, “Chapter 5: The Telephone Spreads: Local Patterns,” in America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992): 122-153.

 

Stephen J. Pitti, “Chapter 4: Residence in Revolution,” in The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003): 78-102.

 

Glenna Matthews, “Chapter 2: The Fruit Industry Workforce at High Tide: A Wave of Militancy Hits the Valley,” in Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003): 48-80.

 

Cecilia Tsu, “’Independent of the Unskilled Chinaman’: Race, Labor, and Family Farming in California’s Santa Clara Valley,” Western Historical Quarterly 37 (Winter 2006): 475-495.

 

Gabriella M. Petrick, “’Like Ribbons of Green and Gold’: Industrializing Lettuce and the Quest for Quality in the Salinas Valley, 1920-1965,” Agricultural History 80.3 (2006): 269-295.

 

Week of 9/11: The original garage start-ups

 

 

 

Timothy J. Sturgeon, “How Silicon Valley Came to Be,” in Understanding Silicon Valley: The Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region, ed. Martin Kenney (Stanford: Stanford University Press): 15-47.

 

Christophe Lécuyer, “Chapter 1: Defiant West,” in Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006): 13-51.

 

Christophe Lécuyer, “Chapter 2: Diversification,” in Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006): 53-89.

 

Christophe Lécuyer, “Chapter 3: Military Cooperative,” in Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006): 91-128.

 

Glenna Matthews, “Chapter 3: War and Cold War Shape the Valley: The Birth of a Metropolis and the Death of Union Democracy,” in Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003): 81-111.

 

Week of 9/18: Stanford

 

Rebecca S. Lowen, “‘Exploiting a Wonderful Opportunity’: The Patronage of Scientific Research at Stanford University, 1937-1965,” Minerva 30 (1992): 391-421.

 

Stuart W. Leslie, “Playing the Education Game to Win: The Military and Interdisciplinary Research at Stanford,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 18.1 (1987): 55-88.

 

Margaret Pugh O’Mara, “Chapter 3: From the Farm to the Valley: Stanford University and the San Francisco Peninsula,” in Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005): 97-141.

 

Eric J. Vettel, “Chapter 4: The Ascent of Pure Research,” in Biotech: The Countercultural Origins of an Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006): 49-82.

 

 

Week of 9/25: Semiconductors – Shockley to Fairchild

 

 

 

Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, “Chapter 11: California Dreaming,” in Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age (New York: Norton, 1997): 225-253.

 

Christophe Lécuyer, “Chapter 4: Revolution in Silicon,” in Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006): 129-167.

 

Daniel Holbrook et al., “The Nature, Sources, and Consequences of Firm Differences in the Early History of the Semiconductor Industry,” Strategic Management Journal 21 (2000): 1017-1041.

 

Christophe Lécuyer, “Chapter 5: Opening up New Markets,” in Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006): 169-209.

 

 

Week of 10/2: Semiconductors – Fairchild to Intel

 

 

 

Ross Knox Bassett, “Chapter 4: MOS in a Bipolar Company: Fairchild and the MOS Transistor, 1963-1968,” in To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002): 107-138.

 

Christophe Lécuyer, “Chapter 7: Valley of Silicon,” in Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006): 253-303

 

Ross Knox Bassett, “Chapter 6: The End of Research: Intel and the MOS Transistor, 1968-1975,” in To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002): 167-209.

 

Nile W. Hatch and David C. Mowery, “Process Innovation and Learning by Doing in Semiconductor Manufacturing,” Management Science 44.11 (November, 1998): 1461-1477.

 

Optional

 

Rebecca Henderson, “Of Life Cycles Real and Imaginary: The Unexpectedly Long Old Age of Optical Lithography,” Research Policy 24 (1995): 631-643.

 

Week of 10/9: High tech and the Bay Area counterculture

 

We will watch part of “The Mother of All Demos” aka A Research Center for Augmenting the Human Intellect (1968)

 

 

 

Fred Turner, “Chapter 2: Stewart Brand Meets the Cybernetic Counterculture,” in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 41-68.

 

Fred Turner, “Chapter 3: The Whole Earth Catalog as Information Technology,” in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 69-102.

 

Eric J. Vettel, “Chapter 5: Research Life!,” in Biotech: The Countercultural Origins of an Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006): 83-128.

 

Timothy Moy, “Culture, Technology, and the Cult of Tech in the 1970s,” in America in the Seventies, ed. David Farber & Beth Bailey (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2004): 208-227.

 

Stuart W. Leslie, “Chapter 9: The Days of Reckoning: March 4 and April 3,” in The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993): 233-256.

 

 

Week of 10/16: Biotechnology

 

!!!MID-TERM HANDED OUT!!!

 

We will watch Protein Synthesis: An Epic on the Cellular Level (1971)

 

 

 

Eric J. Vettel, “Chapter 8: Cetus: History’s First Biotechnology Company,” in Biotech: The Countercultural Origins of an Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006): 186-215.

 

Eric J. Vettel, “Conclusion: An End …,” in Biotech: The Countercultural Origins of an Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006): 216-227.

 

Sally Smith-Hughes, “Making Dollars out of DNA: The First Major Patent in Biotechnology and the Commercialization of Molecular Biology, 1974-1980,” Isis 92 (2001): 541-575.

 

Robert Bud, “Chapter 8: The Wedding with Genetics,” in The Uses of Life: A History of Biotechnology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993): 163-188.

 

Swanson, Kara (2007) “Biotech in Court: A Legal Lesson on the Unity of Science,” Social Studies of Science 37.3: 357-384.

 

Week of 10/23: Silicon Valley in national context

 

!!!MID-TERM DUE BACK BEGINNING OF CLASS!!!

 

Saxenian, Anna-Lee (1988) “In Search of Power: The Organization of Business Interests in Silicon Valley and Route 128,” Economy and Society 18.1: 25-70.

 

Leslie, Stuart W. & Robert H. Kargon (1996) “Selling Silicon Valley: Frederick Terman’s Model for Regional Advantage,” Business History Review 70.4: 435-472.

 

Margaret Pugh O’Mara, “Chapter 5: Selling the New South: Georgia Tech and Atlanta,” in Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005): 182-220.

 

Joseph Cortright and Heike Mayer, Signs of Life: The Growth of Biotechnology Centers in the U.S. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 2002).

 

Leslie, Stuart W. (2001) “Regional Disadvantage: Replicating Silicon Valley in New York’s Capital Region,” Technology and Culture 42.2: 236-264.

 

Week of 10/30: Silicon Valley in international context

 

We will watch part of Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia (2002)

 

Rose Marie Ham, Greg Linden, and Melissa M. Appleyard, “The Evolving Role of Semiconductor Consortia in the United States and Japan,” California Management Review 41.1 (Fall, 1998): 137-163.

 

Jeffrey T. Macher, David C. Mowery, David A. Hodges, “Reversal of Fortune?  The Recovery of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry,” California Management Review 41.1 (Fall, 1998): 107-136.

 

AnnaLee Saxenian, “Chapter 2: Learning the Silicon Valley System,” in The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006): 48-81.

 

AnnaLee Saxenian, “Chapter 5: Taiwan as Partner and Parent,” in The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006): 163-196.

 

Boy Lüthje, “The Changing Map of Global Electronics: Networks of Mass Production in the New Economy,” in Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry, ed. Ted Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld, David N. Pellow (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006): 17-30.

 

 

Week of 11/6: Labor, environmental, and quality of life issues

 

 

Jan Mazurek, “Chapter 2: Hitting a Moving Target,” in Making Microchips: Policy, Globalization, and Economic Restructuring in the Semiconductor Industry (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999): 47-88. [available as e-book from Fondren]

 

AnnaLee Saxenian, “The Urban Contradictions of Silicon Valley,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 7 (1983): 237-262.

 

Joseph LaDou, “Occupational Health in the Semiconductor Industry,” in Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry, ed. Ted Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld, David N. Pellow (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006): 31-42.

 

Leslie A. Byster and Ted Smith, “From Grassroots to Global: The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition’s Milestones in Building a Movement for Corporate Accountability and Sustainability in the High-Tech Industry,” in Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry, ed. Ted Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld, David N. Pellow (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006): 111-119.

 

Amanda Hawes and David N. Pellow, “The Struggle for Occupational Health in Silicon Valley: A Conversation with Amanda Hawes,” in Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry, ed. Ted Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld, David N. Pellow (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006): 120-128.

 

 

Week of 11/13: Hackers, futurists, and techno-libertarians

 

We will watch part of Triumph of the Nerds (1996)

 

 

 

Lonny J. Brooks and Geoffrey Bowker, “Playing at Work: Understanding the Future of Work Practices at the Institute for the Future,” Information, Communication & Society 5 (2002): 109-136.

 

Fred Turner, “Chapter 4: Taking the Whole Earth Digital,” in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 103-140.

 

Fred Turner, “Chapter 5: Virtuality and Community on the WELL,” in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 141-174.

 

Mary Ingram-Waters and W. Patrick McCray, “Social Movement Spillover from Space Enthusiasts to Nanotechnology,” unpublished manuscript.

 

 

Week of 11/20: Computing

 

We will watch part of Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)

 

 

 

Thierry Bardini, “Chapter 6: The Arrival of the Real User and the Beginning of the End,” in Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000): 143-181.

 

Ross Knox Bassett, “Conclusion/Epilogue,” in To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002): 282-307.

 

Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, “Chapter 10: The Shaping of the Personal Computer,” in Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York: Basic Books, 1996): 233-258.

 

Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, “Chapter 11: The Shift to Software,” in Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York: Basic Books, 1996): 259-282.

 

Mollick, Ethan (2006) “Establishing Moore’s Law,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 28.3: 62-75.

 

 

Week of 12/4: Silicon Valley and the New Economy

 

 

 

Jeffrey T. Macher, David C. Mowery, and Timothy S. Simcoe, “e-Business and Disintegration of the Semiconductor Industry Value Chain,” Industry and Innovation 9 (December, 2002): 155-181.

 

Fred Turner, “Chapter 6: Networking the New Economy,” in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 175-206.

 

Fred Turner, “Chapter 7: Wired,” in From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006): 207-236.

 

Matthew A. Zook, “Chapter 7: Foundation for the Dot-com Boom,” in The Geography of the Internet Industry (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005): 96-110.

 

Matthew A. Zook, “Chapter 8: Panning for Digital Gold,” in The Geography of the Internet Industry (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005): 111-132.