Overview

After the End argues that the cultural imaginaries and practices of the Cold War continue to deeply shape the present in profound but largely unnoticed ways across the global North and in the global South. The argument draws examples from literature and literary criticism, film, music, the historical and social scientific record and past and present physical sites to consider the bunker as a material form, an image and as a fantasy that took shape in the global North in the 1960s and that spread globally into the twenty-first century. After the End reminds us not only that most of the world's peoples have lived with or died from apocalyptic conditions for centuries, but that the Cold War imaginaries that grew from and fed those conditions, continue to survive as well.

Full Product Details

Author:   David L. Pike
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.680kg
ISBN:  

9781526195395

ISBN 10:   1526195399
Pages:   360
Publication Date:   20 January 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: After the imminent apocalypse: the bunker fantasy since the Cold War 1 The fantasy of 1980s survivalism since the Reagan years 2 Survivance in fictions of survivalism since the Reagan years 3 The hedgehog, the tortoise, and the world: Switzerland, Albania, and the global bunker fantasy 4 Life in the ontological bunker: Cold War continuance, appropriation, and repurposing from America to Taiwan 5 Writing from the epistemological bunker: fictions of postnuclear apocalypse 6 Wall and tunnel: security, containment ,and subversion Conclusion: Biosecurity, siloing, and the legacies of a shelter society -- .

Reviews

'Pike examines the legacy of the Cold War through what he calls “the bunker fantasy,” an ambivalent desire containing not only the promise of safety and shelter but also the prospect of fear, isolation, and confinement.' —CHOICE 'Throughout the book, Pike turns to a dizzying assortment of “contradictory” yet illuminating examples, from Afrofuturism to Albanian civil defence architecture. His chapters on twenty-first-century adaptations of the Cold War built environment offer a particularly useful model for what a post-Cold War formalism might look like.' — Brian K Goodman, Arizona State University -- .

'Pike examines the legacy of the Cold War through what he calls “the bunker fantasy,” an ambivalent desire containing not only the promise of safety and shelter but also the prospect of fear, isolation, and confinement.' CHOICE -- .

Author Information

David L. Pike is a Professor of Literature at American University

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