Accidental Empires

Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date (1992, 1996), is a book written by Mark Stephens under the pen name Robert X. Cringely about the founding of the personal computer industry and the history of Silicon Valley.^[1]

Accidental Empires

Revised edition (1996)
Author	Mark Stephens (as Robert X. Cringely)
Language	English
Subject	Computer industry
Publisher	Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
Publication date	February 1992
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	324
ISBN	978-0-201-57032-8
OCLC	24141993
Dewey Decimal	338.4/7004/0979473 20ca
LC Class	HD9696.C63 U51586 1991

The style of Accidental Empires is informal, and in the first chapter Cringely claims that he is not a historian but an explainer, and that "historians have a harder job because they can be faulted for what is left out; explainers like me can get away with printing only the juicy parts."^[2] Notably, the book was critical of Steve Jobs and Apple, as well as Bill Gates and Microsoft.^[3] The book described how companies in the technology industry were built and critiqued the public-relation campaigns that explained such narratives.^[4]

The book was revised and republished in 1996, with new material added. A documentary based on the book, called Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires was aired on PBS in 1996, with Cringely as the presenter.^[5][6] In November of 2011, a film based on the miniseries called Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, was exhibited at the Landmark Theatres.^[7] It included the missing footage of the interview that Jobs did with Cringely in 1995 for the PBS documentary.^[8]

In February 2012, Cringely wrote on his blog that he will republish the book online, free for all to read.^[9]

Release details

• 1991, United States, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc ISBN 978-0-441-00652-6, Pub date February 1992 Hardback
• 1993, United States, HarperCollins ISBN 978-0-88730-621-1, Pub date February 1993, Paperback
• 1996, United States, HarperCollins ISBN 978-0-88730-855-0, Pub date October 23, 1996, Hardback
• 1996, United States, Penguin Books Ltd ISBN 978-0-14-025826-4, Pub date April 4, 1996, Paperback