Why read Bulldozer?

Book cover of Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape

Book description

The first history of the bulldozer and its transformation from military weapon to essential tool for creating the post-World War II American landscape

Although the decades following World War II stand out as an era of rapid growth and construction in the United States, those years were equally significant for…

Explore

Topics

Urban renewal

Genres

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Bulldozer as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Catherine McNeur

Author

I’ll admit that bulldozers seem like the very antithesis of nature and that’s why I love this book. Francesca Ammon looks at how the cultural embrace of bulldozers following World War II, whether through planning, urban renewal, or even children’s books, reshaped the way Americans dealt with their environment in the second half of the twentieth century. Bulldozers gave Americans immense power to level hills, neighborhoods, and orange groves to create blank slates so they could build highways and redesign cities. This book changed the way I understood the cultural and technological rise (and fall) of this destructive tool.

From Catherine's list on histories of nature in unexpected places.