Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb

In this provocative 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 lifestyles, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with "rings of steel" against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.