Bunker: Building for the End Times

Product Description

A thought-provoking, chilling, and eerily prescient look at “prepper” communities around the world that are building bunkers against a possible apocalypse.

Currently, 3.7 million Americans call themselves preppers. Millions more prep without knowing it. Bradley Garrett, who began writing this book years before the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, argues that prepping is a rational response to global, social, and political systems that are failing to produce credible narratives of continued stability. Left with a sense of foreboding fueled by disease outbreaks, increasing government dysfunctionality, eroding critical infrastructure, nuclear brinksmanship, and an accelerating climate crisis, people all over the world are responding predictably—by
hunkering down.

For this book, Garrett traveled across four continents to meet those who are constructing panic rooms, building underground backyard survival chambers, stockpiling supplies, preparing go bags, hiding inflatable rafts, rigging mobile “bugout” vehicles, and burrowing deep into the earth. He has returned with 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 our times into new and sharper focus.

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

Review

“A kind of apocalyptic 
Super Size Me…The self-destruction of our species haunts this book: we realize that all along Garrett has been more interested in exploring human limits than human spaces.”

—The Guardian

“The book is about much more than illicit glimpses into occluded spaces. It is a thoughtful study into the nature of paranoia and the people who try to profit from it—and it makes for a page-turning read.” 

—Financial Times 

“A tartly thoughtful work, by turns witty and philosophical, with an undercurrent of anger at the way we are governed and the commodification of existential fear….Garrett writes pacily, bringing to vivid life a gallery of survivalist wingnuts, conmen and evangelists.” 

—Evening Standard  

“Brilliant…
Bunker, self-evidently a work for our times, shimmers with a Ballardian imagery of disaster and melt-down.” 

—The Spectator 

“The dark charisma of the bunker is probably what will attract readers to this book, but the energetic and gregarious Garrett keeps the story focused on people rather than buildings….Fortunately, [he] is a bright and buoyant guide and 
Bunker rattles briskly along.” 

—Literary Review (UK) 

“An engrossing tour of the fortified living spaces where ‘preppers’ plan to isolate and protect themselves from the collapse of civilization….This richly detailed account will have readers wondering about their own disaster plans.” 

—Publishers Weekly

“Intriguing and often entertaining reading on a phenomenon that seems timeless.” 

—Kirkus Reviews 

“[Ranges] across four continents to examine the efforts of various doomsday preppers. ….Readers interested in current topics, cultural studies, and survivalism will enjoy this insightful look at prepper culture.” 

—Library Journal

“Will make you question both [the] eagerness and reticence to go underground or bug out.  Either way, if you want an interesting, open-eyed read, grab 
Bunker and be prepared.” 

—North Platte Telegraph

“An excellent resource for entrepreneurs desiring to create a resilience plan, put extra slack in their own system, and minimize the negative consequences for their business.” 

—Entrepreneur magazine

About the Author

Bradley Garrett is an American-born cultural geographer who writes about how space is shaped by human curiosity, imagination, and activity. He is the author of five books and more than fifty academic journal articles and book chapters. His research has been featured on media outlets worldwide including the
BBC,
ABC, and
National Geographic