Alexis Madrigal — The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City - with Adam Harris

In The Pacific Circuit, the award-winning journalist Alexis Madrigal sculpts an intricate tableau of the city of Oakland that is at once a groundbreaking big-idea book, a deeply researched work of social and political history, and an intimate portrait of an essential American city that has been at the crossroads of the defining themes of the twenty-first century.Oakland's stories encompass everything from Silicon Valley's prominence and the ramifications of a compulsively digital future to the underestimated costs of technological innovation on local communities--all personified in this changing landscape for the city's lifelong inhabitants.The Pacific Circuit holds a magnifying glass to the scars etched by generations of systemic segregation and the ceaseless march of technological advancement. These are not just abstract concepts; they are embedded in the very fabric of Oakland and its people, from dockworkers and community organizers to real estate developers and businesspeople chasing the highest possible profits. Madrigal delves into city hall politics, traces the intertwining arcs of venture capital and hedge funds, and offers unprecedented insight into Silicon Valley's genesis and growth, all against the backdrop of Oakland--a city vibrating with untold stories and unexplored connections that can, when read carefully, reveal exactly how our markets and our world really function.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780374159405?ic_referral=mlio1VFw2EHfC-FYcYr_i5YFPsmFnk1CNHvBinAx34owM3lmaTiACclSfPnBSDmk5CsnENzKQhdFdkczkPc2cHX5naB9UOMTihraNf2lgvvIs8AzigCwvosW6-gwczF-mipikdkAlexis Madrigal is a journalist who lives in Oakland, California. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a cofounder of the COVID Tracking Project. Previously, he was the editor in chief of Fusion and a staff writer at Wired. He has been a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Information School and its Center for the Study of Technology, Science, and Medicine as well as an affiliate with Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. He is the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology.Madrigal is in conversation with Adam Harris, a senior fellow with the Education Policy program at New America and the author of The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal—and How to Set Them Right. Before joining New America, he covered higher education and national politics for six years on staff at The Atlantic, where he is now a contributing writer. He was previously a reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education, focusing on federal education policy and historically black colleges, and the social editor at ProPublica. He served as the 2022-2023 writer-in-residence at North Carolina A&T University. In 2021, Adam was a National Fellow at New America and was named to that year's Forbes "30 Under 30" list. He is currently working on his second book, Is This America?, a history of the South’s role in politics and how the region shapes us as a nation—but not always in the ways we assume it does, which will be published by Pantheon.*recorded 3/17/2025