Cultures@SiliconValley
"English-Lueck's fascinating new book,Cultures@Silicon Valley, casts a laserlike anthropological eye on the mores and mannerisms of her homies. . . . English-Lueck and colleagues left the groves of academe and spent years—real quality time—observing "ordinary" people doing mundane things. . . . English-Lueck writes about moms at youth soccer games keeping one eye on the laptop and one on the field, dads who bond at the park by sharing their work histories, families that make a place at the dinner table for the PC, janitors who take high-tech courses to keep up with the custodial equipment innovations."—San Francisco Chronicle"While we read about its excesses and shortcomings in newspapers every day, rarely are the factors that distinguish Silicon Valley from the rest of America put in a broader context.  InCultures@SiliconValley, anthropologist J.A. English-Lueck explores the unique set of assumptions taken for granted by engineers and entrepreneurs alike, suggesting how apparent success in the Valley gave way to tangible failure."—The Examiner"The investigation English-Lueck is conducting delves deeper than the surface to-and-fro of the boom-bust business cycle.  Venture capitalists, CEOs and IPOs get the headlines, but Enligh-Lueck is looking at how people actually live, how the cultural interplay of Chinese and Indian and Mexican  and Anglo-American resolves itself in the high-pressure, high-stakes cauldron of the Valley, how the 24/7 nature of work in the high-tech world warps families and schools and friendships."—Salon.com"Good ethnographies are hard to find.  This is not only a good one, but an excellent and timely one."—CHOICE"Even though this book is written from an academic study, English-Lueck lays off the anthropological jargon enough to present the information in a way readable to the rest of us.  For my two cents, it's definitely worth a read. . . . If you have any curiosity about what it means to live in Silicon Valley at the turn of the millenium, this book is for you."—Ellen Young, San Jose'sFree Downtown Community Magazine