Chile Underground

The Santiago Metro and the Struggle for a Rational City

By: Andra B Chastain

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Hardcover | 28 January 2025 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
320 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.49 x 15.55 x 2.54

Hardcover

$131.99

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A fascinating historical examination of the Santiago Metro system as a microcosm of Chilean national identity during the twentieth century

The Santiago Metro, the largest urban infrastructure project in Chile's history, was designed in the 1960s in response to rapid urban growth. Despite the upheavals of Salvador Allende's democratic socialism (1970-1973) and Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship (1973-1990), the project survived and is now the largest metro system in South America. What explains its success? How did its meaning shift under democracy and dictatorship? What does its history reveal about struggles for a more just city?

Drawing on Chilean and French archives, Andra B. Chastain demonstrates that Chilean-French relations and French financing were crucial to the project's survival during the Cold War. The Metro's history also illuminates the contested process of implementing neoliberalism and the unexpected continuities of state planning and visions for a rational city that persisted despite free-market reforms. Most important, this story shows that the Metro came to symbolize the nation and became a critical site where planners, workers, and urban residents contested Chile's path to modernity.

Industry Reviews

"Infrastructure is never neutral. In Chile Underground, Andra Chastain brilliantly shows how, from its planning and financing to its construction, implementation and daily use, the Santiago Metro can serve as a fulcrum for Chile's recent history."-Raymond Craib, author of The Cry of the Renegade: Politics and Poetry in Interwar Chile

"A fascinating history of Chile's social, political, and economic twists and turns told through the continuity of trains, tracks, and tunnels. Chastain's book makes an important contribution to the history of Chile and the history of technology."-Eden Medina, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"A pathbreaking critical history of infrastructure and modernity, Chile Underground upends Cold War dichotomies to illuminate enduring contests over public order and social justice."-Heidi Tinsman, University of California, Irvine

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