From the world's first car bomb in 1920 (actually a horse-drawn wagon, exploded by anarchist Mario Buda in downtown Manhattan), to those incessantly exploding in Iraq, Mike Davis shows how these "quotidian workhorses of urban terrorism" are responsible for "producing the most significant mutations in city form and urban lifestyle."
At its best, this is a gripping supplementary history, full of surprising, often contrarian facts and voices behind some of the most spectacular acts of violence on record.
Packed with horrific and heartrending details, the book goes beyond the statistics to portray the human and moral costs of this gruesome political lever.
For all its gripping “noirish” flourishes and “cool” asides, this is a serious, disturbing and pessimistic book that resonates with widespread contemporary terrors. Above all, it is an excellent analysis of the arrogant miscalculations, cruelties and sometimes wanton stupidity of various governing elites.
