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While Nokia did manage to establish a short-­lived factory building in the outskirts of Cluj in Jucu—­a former state farmland and industrial zone—it never completed its downtown office building. Yet the assembly plant, “Nokia Village,” provided temporary employment for hundreds of Romanians hungry …

[...] Though the term “Silicon Valley” did not appear ­until 1971 in reference to semiconductor success by known eugenicist William Shockley,63 such events had every­thing to do with Stanford University, which had established a research park in 1951 that became home to many of the Valley’s earliest…

Yet even the South Bay, San Jose, and San Francisco—­cities collectively recognized as Silicon Valley—­bear imperial toponymies, referencing lands vio- lently stolen from Ohlone and Miwok peoples

Most of the tech companies scattered about Cluj, but also Bucharest and other Romanian cities, are not from Silicon Valley per se (although plenty are); many are in fact based in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, and beyond. That said, they cumulatively serve as an alibi for Silicon Valle…

US empire helped engineer and then capitalize on the collapse of communism (though of course this had to do with a range of ­factors notwithstanding increased authoritarian rule, nationalism, and a shift away from the antifascist ideals that originally contoured the socialist proj­ect). Silicon Val…