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352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
The author wrote this in the same way in which I often write my essays: I start with a preconceived conclusion and generally try to shoehorn the rest of my essay into it, despite reality differing a little from what I though.
The rise of computers was undoubtedly parallel with the rise of the drug culture and the New Left, and many of the first computer scientists were active participants in these movements; however, it seems that by the author's sporadic intermingling of these separate events, neither overly influenced the other.
At points, I thought I was reading two different stories: one of the rise of computers, one of '60s counterculture, which were both incredibly interesting. The vision of researchers in the '50s and '60s is mindblowing, especially after having watched and read some of the primary media mentioned by Markoff. The anti-war student movement, too, is a fascinating subject, one that I would like to see in more depth.
In summary, it's a solid book, especially for those with little knowledge of pre-Apple II computer history, but the author's overly ambitious approach of intertwining two separate events confused the narrative and took away from what could have been two excellent, separate histories of the goings-on in '60s California.
The commune idea hadn't worked out. He ran out of money within six months, it being more expensive to live on a commune in southern Oregon than he had thought it would be. Worst of all, it turned out there were no programming jobs anywhere close to his commune.
But Duvall was extremely opposed to the war in Vietnam, which he came to see as a generational aberration. An entire American generation had been shaped by World War II; they got to be heroes, they got to be in command, and they won. It had been the high point of their lives. Vietnam, he thought, was the legacy of a group of Americans that was reaching its midlife crisis, and to grapple with it they were waging another war. There was no other reasonable explanation.