"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, Davis shows how these 'quotidian workhorses of urban terrorism' are responsible for 'producing the most significant mutations in city form and urban lifestyle.' Whether the product of fringe militancy or 'clandestine state terrorism,' Davis shows, the car bomb has a limitless capacity to create and sustain fear (largely because of low cost and technological accessibility). Given the weapon's ubiquity in modern times, a 'brief history' scarcely allows room for the numerous theaters of conflict within which the car bomb has evolved, including Northern Ireland, Beirut, Israel, the U.S. and Colombia, let alone much political background on, say, the Tamil Tigers' bombing campaign in Sri Lanka. 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. Despite clearly populist sympathies, Davis steers away from romanticism, keeping tight focus on the indiscriminate violence inflicted upon innocents. Packed with horrific and heartrending details, the book goes beyond the statistics to portray the human and moral costs of this gruesome political lever. Photos." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

In this gripping and disturbing history, Davis traces the worldwide use and development of the car bomb and, in the process, exposes the role of state intelligence agencies in globalizing urban terrorist techniques.

MacArthur Fellow Mike Davis lives in San Diego. He is the author of Planet of Slums, Prisoners of the American Dream, City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Magical Urbanism, Late Victorian Holocausts, Dead Cities, and The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu.