feels like a 2.5-day cruise of all Europe: glitzy and with style but ultimately shallow and unsatisfying

books:


	• Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb Mike Davis Verso, 2008 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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A HISTORY AND A WARNING

Mike Davis writes books that are difficult to read: he takes on subjects nobody else will touch and analyzes them with an unrelenting, scientific eye (see his recent Planet of Slums). The history of car bombing--like the startling rise of urban slums--is not a pleasant thesis. One reviewer on this site stated that car bombing is a "good topic for a `microhistory' (like the ones that are about wood, coal, salt, etc.)". But I can hardly recommend BUDA'S WAGON to a reader merely because they enjoyed Kurlansky's SALT or McPhee's ORANGES. Rather this is the sort of work you give to a dear friend with the caveat "It will make you sick to your stomach, furious, and terrified for your children's future." Professor Davis' political affiliations have nothing to do with this work. He is more misanthrope than "lefty." There are no heroes in the despicable annals of car bombing. Davis points out over and over again how bombers (from the Stern Gang in pre-Israel Palestine to Casey's operatives in Lebanon to Iraqi "insurgents") almost ALWAYS go after civilian targets--usually women and children. The purpose of the car bomb is to rip out the souls of one's enemy. They are absurdly cheap to make (the blast power of a $5,000 car bomb is often superior to a million dollar ballistic missile). They are incredibly effective (Ronald Reagan pulling us out of Beirut after the Marine barrack bombing; UN forces leaving Iraq). And a few well-placed bombs can create economic catastrophe (e.g. the IRA bombings of London's financial center in the early nineties causing billions of dollars in damage). I pray this book is not a prescient glimpse into a grim future for America. I hope specialists in the FBI and CIA as well as Homeland Security have well-read copies of Davis' work sitting on their desks. And every time you read about a new car bombing in Iraq (nearly every day now) you, dear reader, will think of this joyless yet important book.

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It's Hard to Ignore A Bomb

The feature of Mike Davis' books that I have always liked the most is the way in which he digests and synthesizes scholarly works into his commentary to make his points without bogging the reader down in endless detail. This book however lacks this feature, unfortunately. What Davis has done here instead is survey the principle literature of the many asymmetrical warfare scenarios that have played out during the past hundred years and explain how each generation of freedom-fighters/revolutionaries/terrorists have used explosives to wear down their opponents and promote a condition of uncertainty, discontent and terror thereby.

Davis begins with the story of Mario Buda an Italian anarchist who set off a horse wagon filled with dynamite on Wall Street in NYC in 1920, killing 40 and wounding many more, in retaliation for the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti for a robbery and murder in Boston.

And here is where his scholarly manner fails him. Davis says that some time later in the 1930's after Buda has escaped America undetected and returned to his native Italy, that "Buda basked unmolested in the sunshine of his native Romagna (where he supposedly switched camps and became a spy for Mussolini).." [Page 11] Davis amazingly gives no citation for this claim, leaving the reader to wonder if Buda was merely a bloodyminded hothead or a sociopathic terrorist for hire. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and in this case Davis neglects his usual scholarly habit.

So what exactly is it about car bombs that make them such an attractive weapon for terrorists? "Car bombs are loud," says Davis, "in every sense. In addition to their specific operational functions (killing enemies, disrupting daily life, generating unsustainable economic costs, and so on), such explosions are usually advertisements for a cause, leader, or abstract principle...In contrast to other forms of political propaganda, from graffiti on walls to individual assassinations, their occurrence is almost impossible to deny or censor. This certainty of being heard by the world, even in a highly authoritarian or isolated setting is a major attraction to potencial bombers." [Page 9]

Davis makes this book a geo-political historical survey of the effects of car bombs in various wars of independence, terror campaigns, uprisings, revolutions, as well as in criminal acts and senseless murders since Buda's wagon bomb in 1920. [Pages 189-195] Davis almost makes me conclude that whatever the horror and carnage that they create, terror bombings will only increase in number, deadliness and frequency in the coming years, as the media-fication of the global village and dramatic acts of terror are simply made for each other. [Page 153]

I would however limit my recommendation to readers that can stomach endless descriptions of death and injury to innocent people that Davis serves up here though.

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Interesting, too bad its so biased

Car bombs are an interesting topic, especially recently. But they have made headlines for almost the last hundred years. From New York to Oklahoma City to Lebanon, Afghanistan, Israel and Iraq. It should have been a fascinating history and it would have been had the author not decided that he had to inject his personal political and petty hatreds into the topic. After recounting many car bombings, the book then descends into a diatribe against the American and British governments, claiming that the CIA personally is responsible not only for car-bombings in Lebanon and Afghanistan, but that the CIA trained all the people who then went on to influence all those who now do car bombings elsewhere. This is pretty far fetched. Where was the CIA in 1920?

This is like all those books that have as their central thesis a claim that every problem in the world must be the fault of America. But it was Afghan insurgents who detonated the car bombs when fighting the Soviets. It was "Casey's hirelings". Imagine if this book had just been written about car bombs, about their use, their influence, their affect, their death tolls and most interesting, their technological development. That would have been interesting. Oddly enough the terrorists who have masterminded car-bombing campaigns in Iraq and caused thousands of casualties don't come in for the criticism of the CIA, and that is because of bias, rather than honesty. If the author abhored death in general then blame would be equally spread and castigation and high minded language and abuse hurled at all those who blow up civilians, rather than pretending that all car bombing in the world was developed by the CIA and Bill Casey.

A simplistic and biased book, a true tragedy for ruining an interesting subject. Its almost as if it was written first with the idea of 'how can we blame America' and only secondly with the attempt to find a subject that might fit and a bunch of accusations that are unsubstantiated and grossly fabricated.

Seth J. Frantzman

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feels like a 2.5-day cruise of all Europe: glitzy and with style but ultimately shallow and unsatisfying

The title is catchy. Davis' prose is lively and pithy. This book
however, does not measure up to his earlier works such as "Prisoners
of the American Dream". I think the problem is with the subject
itself. All Davis' discussion to the contrary, a car bomb is a
relatively unsophisticated device. One bomber does not have much to
learn from another: some fertilizer, fuel oil, a detonator and a
stolen car and one has a poor-man's air-force. Thus, it is difficult to
cover the history of a car bomb from a purely technical
perspective. Like one could do with other weaponry: fighter planes or
assault rifles. The physical effect of a car bomb is pretty similar so
there is little to describe: a loud bang, smoke, flying debris and
body parts, mangled and bloodied people wringing in agony. Davis tries
to be discreet in his explosion descriptions, yet it gets repetitive
by the end of the book.

So carbombing is a ruthless and indiscriminate tactic employed by
guerrillas of all stripes. The most fascinating aspect of the carbombs
is social. Why does a certain group or a movement chose to use
carbombing? What were the social ramifications? And this is where
Davis falls short. The format of the book does not allow him to
describe in detail each individual guerilla movement. Instead, he
tries to quickly and impartially describe the movement and proceed to
the bombing itself. The effect, however, is that he lumps together the
truly progressive independence movements, the cults like Sendero
Luminoso and everything in between. He does, however, cite good books
that cover each individual conflicts in sufficient enough detail to
explain the causes, the reasons and the dynamic of the struggle in
each individual case: "The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990" by Marilyn
B. Young, "A Secret History of the IRA" by Ed Moloney, or "Pity the
Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon" by Robert Fisk. The facts about the
conflicts that I am not familiar with such as the details about the
Stern Gang in pre-Israel Palestine and Arab reprisals are quite
interesting. The coverage of the ongoing conflict in Iraq is naturally
incomplete and feels truncated.

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reviews: page 1, 2

History of the car bomb traces the political development of this influential weapon of terror and resistance. Winner of the 2007 Lannan Literary Award for Non-Fiction.

In this brilliant and disturbing history, Mike Davis traces the car bomb's worldwide use and development, in the process exposing the role of state intelligence agencies?particularly those of the United States, Israel, India, and Pakistan?in globalizing urban terrorist techniques. Davis argues that it is the incessant impact of car bombs, rather than the more apocalyptic threats of nuclear or bio-terrorism, that is changing cities and urban lifestyle, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with "rings of steel" against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.

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