Cold War Tourist

Tom Vanderbilt in his 2002 book "Survival City. Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America." describes Cooperstown as "a neatly arranged farming town." He reflects on what his odyssey means (page 21):  

"And so I became a Cold War tourist, visiting the places not listed in guidebooks (and some that now are), glimpsing places that seem in danger of vanishing even as we are just beginning to understand their history (as in the case of the North Dakota missile silos), seeing the raw spaces that may someday be refurbished and outfitted with carefully selected curatorial text, but which now stand empty, eerie, and fascinating. These are the tombs of an unknown war, which was once incomprehensibly directed toward the obliteration of civilization."