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Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America
The Cold War was the war that never happened.Nonetheless, it spurred the most significant buildup of military contingency this country has ever known: from the bunkers of Greenbrier, West Virginia, to the "proving grounds" of Nevada, where entire cities were built only to be vaporized. The Cold War was waged on a territory that knew no boundaries but left few traces.In thi...more
Hardcover, 224 pages
Published
April 1st 2002
by Princeton Architectural Press
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Author Tom Vanderbilt takes us around the country examining the evidences left by the Cold War, a war which did and yet didn't happen. From missile silos being destroyed to ones being turned into homes, from "proving grounds" to backyard bomb shelters, Mr. Vanderbilt uncovers sites which often sit right in front of us and simply blend into our landscape in spite of their obviously militaristic features. But he goes beyond the aging and disappearing signs indicating "fallout shelters" and discuss...more
No mundo contemporâneo assolado por crises financeiras e ambientais, a noção de aniquilação atómica é uma memória distante. A quantidade de ogivas disponíveis ainda é grande e colocam-se perigos de proliferação em estados que inspiram pouca confiança, mas o peso da imagem de destruição total do planeta numa orgia de mísseis cruzando os céus em poucos minutos após uma chatice terminal entre os líderes de duas potências ficou remetido ao estatuto de curiosidade histórica. No entanto, subsistem ves...more
I was torn on how to rate this book -- Did I "like" it? Or was it OK? I went with OK. I found myself racing through the book, flipping page after page and grabbing hold of the odd paragraph, the grainy picture.
It would have been better in an "Infinite City" style, with tighter prose interleaved with the often-fascinating visual relics of the Cold War, such as advertisements for bomb shelters, abandoned missile silos and unused fortification bunkers. Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
There's fo...more
It would have been better in an "Infinite City" style, with tighter prose interleaved with the often-fascinating visual relics of the Cold War, such as advertisements for bomb shelters, abandoned missile silos and unused fortification bunkers. Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
There's fo...more
I want to rate you higher, Survival City! - but there are a few things that hurt you. The law student in me will start with the nit-picky: Shoddy editing. The writing style is an interesting one, but several sentences conveying gripping ideas or themes are spoiled by a few glaring typos, run-on mouthfuls, or shoddy citing. Mr. Vanderbilt, if you're going to include citations, be sure to cite after direct quotes, not just after paraphrased chunks of sentences. I want to know where you're getting...more
In 1969, shortly after the Atlas ICBM program was shut down, I was a college freshman filled with curiosity who more eagerly explored every silo location near the town where I went to school than I did the subjects in my classes. Inactive for such a short time, they were likely to be in pristine condition if only I could find one that was open. Flooded entrances, welded doors and no trespassing signs usually greeted me so how exciting it was when I finally found one that was wide open and with o...more
Part of the book - the sections that examine explicitly cold War architecture - are very interesting. While some of the installations examined (Cheyenne Mountain) are well known, others (the Kennedy bunker at Palm Beach, Florida) are not.
However, when the author gets into his theories of how flight, strategic warfare and the growth of the modern city are all interconnected....well, while interesting, they are not interesting enough to justify the number of pages the author devotes to repeating h...more
However, when the author gets into his theories of how flight, strategic warfare and the growth of the modern city are all interconnected....well, while interesting, they are not interesting enough to justify the number of pages the author devotes to repeating h...more
Limp, rambling, and pretentious. With chapters like "dead city" and "survival city," the book reads like unenthusiastic writing assignments tied to various google results for a search on "nuclear" and "city."
After reading the long introduction and beginning of the first chapter, I jumped around furiously, looking for a foothold that would sustain my interest for more then a page or two, to no avail. Redeemed by fascinating photography and a rushed epilogue, written just after the attacks of Sep...more
After reading the long introduction and beginning of the first chapter, I jumped around furiously, looking for a foothold that would sustain my interest for more then a page or two, to no avail. Redeemed by fascinating photography and a rushed epilogue, written just after the attacks of Sep...more
A little hamfisted in saying "LOOK at the way this CRAZY mentality SHAPED the landscape of the United States," which, I suppose, is the point, but the impression of the tone of the book I'm left with is 'constant wonder,' when I kind of feel like Mr. Author should have left the wondering to me.
Also I've had an incredibly hard time finishing this.
Also I've had an incredibly hard time finishing this.
Unlike his later book Traffic, which was excellent, I was mostly bored by Survival City. I think this was partly because the subject wasn't as interesting to me as I had thought it might have been, and I thought the writing was rather quotidian.
This reads a bit like Mike Davis - in fact, Vanderbilt's essay on the construction of German building types (with the help of Mendelsohn and Gropius) seems to be identical to its coverage in Davis's Dead Cities. Interesting read overall.
It starts a bit slow, so you have to stick with it, but it's an excellent read, and it asks some questions not too many treatments of the Cold War bother to ask.
Jun 11, 2013
Bernard Rodriguez
marked it as to-read
Apr 18, 2013
Doug
marked it as to-read
Mar 30, 2013
Gabby
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Mar 15, 2013
Sean Krems
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Feb 23, 2013
Lynne Rostochil
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Feb 20, 2013
Justin Dothard
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Feb 18, 2013
Matthew
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Jan 27, 2013
Angela Scott
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Jan 21, 2013
Benjamin Grandis
marked it as to-read
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