Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska  
Set to publish a “Sweeping Indictment” of
Silicon Valley with
THE TECHNOLOGICAL REPUBLIC 
Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
To be published by Crown Currency on February 18, 2025

On February 18, 2025, Crown Currency, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, will publish The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, a sweeping indictment of Silicon Valley and the broader retreat of cultural ambition across the West by Alexander C. Karp, CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, and his longtime advisor and deputy.

Paul Whitlatch, Editorial Director of Crown Currency, acquired World English rights to the project from Sloan Harris at Creative Artists Agency, who represents the authors. UK rights have been acquired by Stuart Williams of Bodley Head for simultaneous publication.

In The Technological Republic, the co-founder of Palantir and his co-author, Nicholas W. Zamiska, head of corporate affairs at the company, examine the historical and cultural drivers that prompted Silicon Valley and its greatest engineering minds to turn away from the state, including national security projects, to instead focus on sating the narrow and trivial challenges of consumer life.

As online shopping and social media empires moved to the center of culture, projects of vital national importance took a back seat, with leaders in tech, academia, and government increasingly struggling to articulate a strong and coherent worldview. This sweeping redirection of resources and intellectual capital has made the United States and its allies vulnerable in the face of new global challenges, including the ascent of artificial intelligence.

The book builds on an essay published by Karp last July in the New York Times, titled “Our Oppenheimer Moment,” tracing the diminished creative and the cultural ambition of the West, particularly the technology sector, since the end of World War II, as well as a critique in Time magazine earlier this year by Karp and Zamiska of the abandonment of belief and conviction across the technology industry.

Whitlatch sees the book as advancing and challenging arguments made by milestone works of cultural and political commentary such as The Closing of the American Mind (Allan Bloom, 1987), End of History and the Last Man (Francis Fukuyama, 1992), and Clash of Civilizations (Samuel Huntington, 1996), which have structured political discourse around the fate of the West, including both its virtues and contradictions, for decades. In The Technological Republic, Karp and Zamiska deliver a searing critique of Silicon Valley’s failure to come to the defense of the nation that made its rise possible, while providing insight into the much discussed yet still enigmatic technology firm founded in 2003.

The authors take aim at the risks of an increasingly soft belief in the West—an intellectual fragility and reticence that threatens to deprive an entire generation of the capacity for forming independent views about the world. The book will also provide a window into the distinct organizational cultures of the technology companies such as Palantir that have so thoroughly reshaped the world in which we live. 

“This is a bold and brilliant book, with the power to reframe the debate around the most consequential of global issues,” said Whitlatch. “The public needs to hear from those at the center of the creation of technologies like A.I. in order to assess the risks and rewards for themselves.”

About the Authors

Alexander C. Karp is co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc. The company, which was established in Palo Alto, California, in 2003, builds software platforms and artificial intelligence capabilities that are used by defense and intelligence agencies in the United States and allied nations around the world, as well as companies across the commercial sector. Dr. Karp is a graduate of Haverford College and Stanford Law School. He earned his doctorate in social theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. 

Nicholas W. Zamiska is head of corporate affairs and legal counsel to the office of the chief executive officer at Palantir Technologies Inc. He also serves on the board of directors of the Palantir Foundation for Defense Policy & International Affairs. Mr. Zamiska received his J.D. from Yale Law School and is a graduate of Yale College. 

The Technological Republic

Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska

Crown Currency | February 18, 2025 | Pages: 288 | Price: $30.00 | ISBN: 9780593798690

* Also available as an ebook *