BUNKER

A brief historical excavation of bunkers and in-depth exploration of their present-day use, when they “are built not so much in response to one single imminent catastrophe, but out of a more general sense of disquiet.”

For millennia, humans have been digging underground for shelter and to avoid disasters, but cultural geographer Garrett is primarily interested in the bunkers built by militias, survivalists, and preppers. This is the “hardened architecture” of dread, an expression of our 21st-century anxieties and insecurities, “the dominant affect of our era.” From his geographic/ethnographic perspective, Garrett is a capable writer with a crisp, detailed, visual quality to his work, and he brings a gratifying participant approach to this investigation. The author intended to meet the preppers to get a sense of what made them tick (paranoia, practicality, or a mixture of both?), and while he was able to take the measure of some, many were too secretive to reveal too much. Garrett discovered that preppers are motivated by a number of forces, from the scientific to the spiritual. Appalled by a government that has abandoned its responsibility to protect its citizens and a socio-economic system that has fostered alienation and an increased need for self-defense, they dread the prospect of a desperate, voracious human population fighting over dwindling resources. Most interesting are the author’s accounts of his visits to a variety of bunker complexes, including DIY homestead operations, abandoned ICBM silos, and Australian fire bunkers, “oxygen-filled cocoons that look remarkably similar to the nuclear shelters that Americans built in a panic during the first doom boom in the early years of the Cold War.” Garrett finds that many complexes are little more than a combination of wishful thinking and unexecuted plans, and he also avers that communities are crucial, transitions inevitable, and some prepping highly practical. Regarding the last, the author’s “Acronym and Argot Glossary” is helpful for readers unfamiliar with the lingo.

Intriguing and often entertaining reading on a phenomenon that seems timeless.