Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology is a 2022 non-fiction book written by economic historian Chris Miller that explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems.[1] Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology is a Financial Times Business Book of the 2022 Year.[2]

Chris Miller is Associate Professor of International History at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is the author of three other books on Russia, including “Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia”; “We Shall Be Masters: Russia's Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin”; and “The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR”.[3]

Synopsis

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The book "Chip War" by economic historian Chris Miller narrates the series of events that resulted in the United States achieving mastery in chip design and how the development of faster chips played a crucial role in defeating the Soviet Union by making their precision-guided weapons ineffective. The struggle to dominate this sector will have a significant impact on our upcoming times. China's dependence on foreign chips is a significant weakness, as they spend more money on importing chips than purchasing oil.[4]

Reviews

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Financial Times`s journalist Demetri Sevastopulo stated that the book “explains a very complicated industry in digestible fashion". Also he added, "Miller details the vicissitudes of the chip business, both in the US and in the Asian countries that dominate many parts of the supply chain for a technology that is more indispensable than oil”.[5]

Global Policy considered the book "may be the most authoritative book on the geopolitics of the microchip industry to date", and says that Miller "covers immense ground while depicting the ebb and flow of the industry across time, from its humble beginnings in Silicon Valley to its present situation of 'weaponized interdependence' increasingly concentrated near the Taiwan Strait.”[6]

References

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  1. ^ on, Barry EichengreenMarch/April 2023Published (2023-02-28). "Book Review: "Chip War" by Chris Miller". ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2023-03-29.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Graphics, FT Interactive. "Chip War by Chris Miller". FT Business book of the year award. Retrieved 2023-03-29.
  3. ^ "Chris Miller". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 2023-03-29.
  4. ^ Graphics, FT Interactive. "Chip War by Chris Miller". FT Business book of the year award. Retrieved 2023-03-29.
  5. ^ "Chip War — battle for the globe's computing power". Financial Times. 2022-10-11. Retrieved 2023-03-29.
  6. ^ "Book Review - Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology". Global Policy Journal. Retrieved 2023-03-29.