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  • Bunker

  • Building for the End Times
  • By: Bradley Garrett
  • Narrated by: Adam Sims
  • Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (34 ratings)

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Bunker

By: Bradley Garrett
Narrated by: Adam Sims
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Summary

Since prehistory, bunkers have been built as protection from cataclysmic social and environmental forces, and as places of power and transformation. Today, the bunker has become the extreme expression of our greatest fears: from pandemics to climate change and nuclear war. And once you look, it doesn't take long to start seeing bunkers everywhere.

In Bunker, acclaimed urban explorer and cultural geographer Bradley Garrett explores the global and rapidly growing movement of 'prepping' for social and environmental collapse, or 'Doomsday'. From the 'dread merchants' hustling safe spaces in the American mid-West to eco-fortresses in Thailand, from geoscrapers to armoured mobile bunkers, Bunker is a brilliant, original and never less than deeply disturbing story from the frontlines of the way we live now: an illuminating reflection on our age of disquiet and dread that brings it into new, sharp focus.

The bunker, Garrett shows, is all around us: in malls, airports, gated communities, the vehicles we drive. Most of all, he shows, it's in our minds.

©2020 Bradley Garrett (P)2020 Penguin Audio
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What listeners say about Bunker

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Brilliant

Eye opening book and feels all too real in the mad year of 2020. A very nuanced view to prepper culture.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

Very well researched and I loved the readers voice. A topic I knew little about beforehand

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good but not great

This book is well written and narrated. It provides some interesting insights into the psychology of individuals who build bunkers to prepare for apocalyptic events such as nuclear war or a global pandemic. The book highights the plethora of conspiracy theories that exist within the prepper community. The author is sympathetic; he is sceptical without mocking their beliefs.

The book makes a couple of key points:
1.) There's a growing number of people who are concerned about the fragility of modern life and our increasingly inter-connected world. They are building bunkers and choosing to isolate themselves (partly disengaging from the world) as a hedge against disaster.
2.) There are many "dread merchants" (Chapters 1 & 12) who are profiting from such fears and concerns. Concerned citizens are being exploited by the media and private corporations who are seeking to sell bunkers and other preparedness equipment. Some private corporations are scamming their customers since the bunkers are incomplete or are never built.

I found chapters 2 & 3 most interesting. These chapters summarise the history of bunker construction from the Cold War until the present day. The author notes that western governments abandoned the public by providing them with inadequate advice on how to prepare for nuclear attack. This was hypocritical since the same governments were building bunkers to protect the political & military leadership. The public sense of abandonment and unpreparedness encouraged private citizens to build their own bunkers, however only a small minority of wealthy citizens were equipped to do this. Throughout the book, the author describes several bunkers built during the Cold War; most exist today as relics and it is doubtful that they would have afforded effective protection against nuclear disaster. Perhaps a lesson for the future?

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good subject, good reader but drop politics

Was good but would have been better if the author kept the political leanings to themselves. Anti republican and anti trump jibes get boring

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Bradley Garrett has dug deep into his subject

Well-researched through physical exploration and face to face encounters. Good narration. Extraordinary facts revealed.

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    1 out of 5 stars

not what i was looking for & Seems to have errors

not what i was looking for & Seems to have errors even in the first chapter

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    2 out of 5 stars

Not exactly earth shattering

It wasn't a particularly thrilling topic and the reader had the tone of a petulant californian teenager throughout.

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1 person found this helpful