Chip War, Chris Miller
Chip War, Chris Miller
3 Rating(s)
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Chip War
The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology

Author: Chris Miller

Narrator: Stephen Graybill

Unabridged: 12 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/04/2022


Synopsis

The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in fierce competition is “pulse quickening…a nonfiction thriller” (The New York Times).

You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity.

Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the US became dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. Until recently, China had been catching up, aligning its chip-building ambitions with military modernization. Here, in this paperback edition of the book, the author has added intriguing new material focused on "America's Chip Comeback,” which overviews the global consequences of the just passed CHIPS Act, the new export controls on China, and the effort to rally allies to better guard chip technology.

Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study” (The Times, London).

About Chris Miller

Chris Miller is Professor of International History at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He also serves as non-resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and as a Director at Greenmantle, a New York and London-based macroeconomic and geopolitical consultancy. He is the author of three previous books—Putinomics, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy, and We Shall Be Masters—and he frequently writes for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, and other outlets. He received a PhD in history from Yale University and a BA in history from Harvard University. Visit his website at ChristopherMiller.net and follow him on X @CRMiller1. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Liong on May 22, 2024

A must-read for anyone interested in electronics, economics and politics. Chris Miller explains how tiny semiconductors, or microchips, have become essential for everything from our mobile phones to missiles and satellites. When a country dominates the chip industry, it gains significant influence in......more

Goodreads review by Jason on October 23, 2022

Chip War is an outstanding history of the microchips from their invention up until just about the current moment (hopefully the eventual paperback edition will add some context on the significant recent U.S. policy shift on chips). It is written in a relatively easy and entertaining style that makes......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on May 23, 2023

This book has some good information (which has been addressed by other reviewers) but it also has some blatantly obvious bias.. there's more than a little "Ra-Ra America and Capitalism is the best", sinophobia directed heavily at China for doing... the same kind of things that the US does. The autho......more

Goodreads review by Nilesh on October 08, 2022

I write this review a few days after the book's publication and the day after the US announced a sweeping set of restrictions on US tools sold to any advanced Chinese semiconductor chip manufacturer. There could not have been a more forceful endorsement of the relevance of any book. Chip War is more......more

Goodreads review by Clif on January 21, 2023

This book starts with the invention of the transistor and follows with how its existence inspired entrepreneurs, investors, and politicians. All through this story the book keeps making reference to Moore's Law as if it was preordained scripture. As the transistors improved and manufacturing techniq......more