The postwar transformation of the American landscape is both astonishing and puzzling. Suburbs grew from scratch, large swathes of cities were demolished in the name of urban renewal and highways made their way through farmlands and urban areas. Was it merely because American society was in need of these infrastructures? For Francesca Russello Ammon, such a functionalist explanation is not sufficient. Drawing from a historical and cultural analysis, Ammon argues that Americans became infatuated with implementing demolition. During the postwar period, the bulldozer was not only perceived as a reason why Americans won World War II, but, as showcased in children's books, it was seen as an empowering tool representing the infinite power of mankind.
Even if the structure of its argument is sometimes muddled, this book can stimulate political science research: first, because it questions the weight of technological instruments in public policy, that is, their material potential as much as the imaginaries and the economic incentives surrounding their utilization; and second, because it offers a new angle on the old problem of the link between international and domestic politics, or between technologies developed for the sake of war and the politics undertaken to modernize a country.
In the first section, Ammon uses the work of the Seabees—the naval construction battalions of the US Army—on the South West Pacific front during the WWII to show how “the war offered countless opportunities for honing the practices of demolition and clearance” (37). She also analyzes how this context “transformed workaday construction men and equipment into heroes and weapons” (43). The Seabees could transform a jungle into an airstrip, build roads on wild islands or demolish native homes for future military construction. Ammon contends that the war was not an interruption of the discussion about urban redevelopment but rather a catalyst that shaped the technologies and the ideology. Moreover, the construction industry didn't stop; on the contrary, the war was an experimental terrain and an economic stimulus. Companies like Caterpillar and Harvester not only built publicity campaigns on their war successes, but they also made sure that their war technologies had a domestic usage. They also kept good ties with the federal government. For Ammon, the war produced a macho visual culture that “naturalized large-scale destruction on scale previously unimaginable” (55).
In the second part, Ammon analyzes three cases of domestic politics driven by the postwar culture of clearance: the suburbanization in California, the urban renewal in New Haven and the construction of the Interstate Highway System. The first example is the most compelling. The bulldozer was essential to clear trees and mountains in order to build new residential districts. For Ammon, postwar earthmoving work derived its appeal in part from an “innate thrill” and a “sense of power” experienced by men operating large machines (123). The culture of demolition was also characterized by impunity; pulled trees were often burned onsite with the help of oil and old tires. With regards to the urban renewal, Ammon admits that “the bulldozer's role was less technological than visibly symbolic” (138). She pays considerable attention to the picture of Mayor Dick Lee of New Haven swinging a wrecking crane in a building demolition for Life magazine. This was progress. As for the Interstate Highway System, Ammon shows that urban renewal was a “messy business” tangled up in social injustices. Both policies were “more complicated, costly and contentious than initially imagined” (218). And if the bulldozer was initially seen as an instrument of progress, it slowly became an object of criticism and fear.
The last section traces the same paradigm shift in arts and popular culture. Ammon closely analyzes children's books like Benny the Bulldozer. For Ammon, “by putting a happy face on demolition for their readers, the books subtly endorse the culture of clearance” (222). Marked by a celebration of growth and progress, bulldozer books showed the good side of sacrifice. But, as the resistance to expropriation and urban renewal grew during the 1960s, critical depictions became more frequent. Ammon describes how some avant-garde artists produced a more critical perspective of the bulldozer. Earthworks artists “improved the visibility and the possibility for interrogation of the bulldozer's increasingly normalized activities and impacts” (252). However, consisting mostly in staged acts of transforming landscape, their works were received with mixed emotions. Were they really key actors in the shift toward conservation thinking, or just a symptom? Although Ammon leans towards the former, some doubt remains.
In conclusion, because Ammon did not build on a clear conceptual framework, some will probably be skeptical of the argument. From the racist origins of the word—a “bulldoze” initially referred to a severe “dose” of whipping applied to a “Negro” (16) —and a Seabee burying alive Japanese threatening the life of American soldiers, to a minister accidentally killed by a bulldozer while protesting against urban redevelopment, the link may seem rather tenuous. The statement that the bulldozer represents violence against humanity is extreme and looks like a petitio principii. But questioning the validity of the demonstration does not equate questioning the relevance of the work. The book suggests that actual environmental and urban politics inherit not only a landscape created by bulldozers but also the violence and the injustices in which this landscape and the development technologies are embedded. These problems, it is fair to say, are worthy of inquiry.
