Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I found this book SO interesting! Tom Vanderbilt has unearthed amazing information about the country's mind set during the Cold War.

Rating:
Summary: Heady stuff, very smartly written
Review: I'm usually a rather tough grader, but this is the best book I've read in quite some time. Vanderbilt takes us on a lively and diverse tour of cold war America's remaining architectural artifacts (the interstate highway system, bomb shelters, missile silos, misc. military installations - some still in use, nuclear waste sites, etc.) and weaves an analysis of same into an interesting and often surprising commentary on the historical period and the society which gave rise to these structures. For me, the novel perspective of looking at things from an architectural standpoint worked quite well at making the history and those times come alive.

The style is part documentary, part story-telling, part travelogue, part cultural anthropology, and part essay on topics in architecture (generally) which I previously would not have thought about, or thought I had any reason to think about. The approach was successful enough that I found myself frequently being simply and skillfully led to surprising and profound insights, which were a delight. I came away from the book thinking Vanderbilt was an excellent writer with many new and important ideas on the fascinating subject of nuclear weapons, the cold war, and national security generally -- subjects which can easily be made drole, heavy, boring and/or tedious. For many, the so-called atomic era seems long gone and forgotten (and slightly silly in many aspects), but Vanderbilt makes the issues faced then seem relevant to many similar problems facing us today by placing them in a context of continuity. Highly recommended to a broad audience.

Rating:
Summary: Heady stuff, very smartly written
Review: I'm usually a rather tough grader, but this is the best book I've read in quite some time. Vanderbilt takes us on a lively and diverse tour of cold war America's remaining architectural artifacts (the interstate highway system, bomb shelters, missile silos, misc. military installations - some still in use, nuclear waste sites, etc.) and weaves an analysis of same into an interesting and often surprising commentary on the historical period and the society which gave rise to these structures. For me, the novel perspective of looking at things from an architectural standpoint worked quite well at making the history and those times come alive.

The style is part documentary, part story-telling, part travelogue, part cultural anthropology, and part essay on topics in architecture (generally) which I previously would not have thought about, or thought I had any reason to think about. The approach was successful enough that I found myself frequently being simply and skillfully led to surprising and profound insights, which were a delight. I came away from the book thinking Vanderbilt was an excellent writer with many new and important ideas on the fascinating subject of nuclear weapons, the cold war, and national security generally -- subjects which can easily be made drole, heavy, boring and/or tedious. For many, the so-called atomic era seems long gone and forgotten (and slightly silly in many aspects), but Vanderbilt makes the issues faced then seem relevant to many similar problems facing us today by placing them in a context of continuity. Highly recommended to a broad audience.

Rating:
Summary: Boring - should have been much better
Review: One of the characters at the end of the movie Dr. Strangelove intones emphatically, "we must not have a mine..shaft..gap!" In Tom Vanderbilt's Survival City: Adventures Among The Ruins Of Atomic America, the reader gets to explore the actual architecture of the Cold War period. The book is a well-written combination of essay, travelogue, architecture text, and archaeology book. Even though the book is published by the Princton Architectural Press, it is well within the reach of, and should be enjoyable to, people outside the community of architects and architectural enthusiasts. Mr. Vanderbilt set out on his travels because he wanted to know what the Cold War looked like, and even though I'm not sure he found everything he was looking for, it was damn interesting to come along for the ride. My only complaint is that the book lacks an index, which I hope is remedied in later printings. If the potential reader is concerned that the postscript concerning 9/11 is gratuitous or merely an attempt to cash in on the disaster, rest assured that it is an appropriate ending to the book. The remnants of the Nike missile base nearest to where I live was recently removed for an encroaching housing development. I recommend that you read Survival City and then take a trip to look for Atomic America before it's all gone.

Rating:
Summary: Buildings, Bunkers, and the Bomb
Review: One of the characters at the end of the movie Dr. Strangelove intones emphatically, "we must not have a mine..shaft..gap!" In Tom Vanderbilt's Survival City: Adventures Among The Ruins Of Atomic America, the reader gets to explore the actual architecture of the Cold War period. The book is a well-written combination of essay, travelogue, architecture text, and archaeology book. Even though the book is published by the Princton Architectural Press, it is well within the reach of, and should be enjoyable to, people outside the community of architects and architectural enthusiasts. Mr. Vanderbilt set out on his travels because he wanted to know what the Cold War looked like, and even though I'm not sure he found everything he was looking for, it was damn interesting to come along for the ride. My only complaint is that the book lacks an index, which I hope is remedied in later printings. If the potential reader is concerned that the postscript concerning 9/11 is gratuitous or merely an attempt to cash in on the disaster, rest assured that it is an appropriate ending to the book. The remnants of the Nike missile base nearest to where I live was recently removed for an encroaching housing development. I recommend that you read Survival City and then take a trip to look for Atomic America before it's all gone.

Rating:
Summary: Boring - should have been much better
Review: Tom Vanderbilt would love to be an architect. He's constantly critical of 1950's architecture - wherever he finds it.

With surprisingly little technical knowledge, he tours testing grounds and bunkers. But it's not all Atomic America: he has the same commentary towards Arcosanti and Biosphere. Where I yearn for a storyline, he delivers watered down architecural critique.

Vanderbilt's writing seems to follow this algorithm: Begin a paragraph using a sentence with an odd phrase in quotations. Then refute this with an academic argument. The first dozen times are fun. A whole book written in this style is tedious.

The 1950's nuclear crazyness presents a rich lode for research. The subject (and readers) deserves much more.