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jerrylwei's review against another edition
4.0
Though clearly coming from a certain point of view, Andrew Friedman convincingly connects the rise of the suburbs in Northern Virginia with the rise of the American national security state. He details how American foreign policy abroad, especially CIA actions, shaped personal and material space in the Dulles Corridor. This is essential reading for those hoping to understand how Northern Virginia came to be, a place of vast ethnic diversity, saturated with defense and intelligence agencies, and ever-sprawling.
He focuses on two periods of NOVA growth and CIA intervention abroad: Vietnam and Iran-Contra. The end of the Vietnam War led South Vietnamese, many high-ranking military and security officials, to Northern Virgina, encouraged by the CIA, making NOVA the third largest destination for Vietnamese refugees in America. Central American refugees to Northern Virginia, however, were the victims and enemies of the CIA and their right-wing Contra allies and were actively discouraged from staying in the area. In both episodes, however, Friedman shows how the America brings its empire home. One also can't help but feel sympathy for America's imperial cast-offs--South Vietnamese loyalists trying to keep the fight alive long after Vietnam was united, Salvadorans cooking and cleaning for those men and women who had destroyed their lives back home.
Friedman would have made a more convincing case about the uniqueness of the built environment in Northern Virginia if he had used some statistics as context or compared NOVA to other suburbs across America. While the landscape of suburbia may have dovetailed with the unique characteristics of CIA culture (open secrecy, separation from oversight, the intimate connection between work and home), this doesn't explain the growth of suburbs across America, from Palo Alto to Allentown.
He focuses on two periods of NOVA growth and CIA intervention abroad: Vietnam and Iran-Contra. The end of the Vietnam War led South Vietnamese, many high-ranking military and security officials, to Northern Virgina, encouraged by the CIA, making NOVA the third largest destination for Vietnamese refugees in America. Central American refugees to Northern Virginia, however, were the victims and enemies of the CIA and their right-wing Contra allies and were actively discouraged from staying in the area. In both episodes, however, Friedman shows how the America brings its empire home. One also can't help but feel sympathy for America's imperial cast-offs--South Vietnamese loyalists trying to keep the fight alive long after Vietnam was united, Salvadorans cooking and cleaning for those men and women who had destroyed their lives back home.
Friedman would have made a more convincing case about the uniqueness of the built environment in Northern Virginia if he had used some statistics as context or compared NOVA to other suburbs across America. While the landscape of suburbia may have dovetailed with the unique characteristics of CIA culture (open secrecy, separation from oversight, the intimate connection between work and home), this doesn't explain the growth of suburbs across America, from Palo Alto to Allentown.
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