Chile Underground

Andra B. Chastain is assistant professor of history at Washington State University Vancouver. She is the co-editor, with Timothy W. Lorek, of Itineraries of Expertise: Science, Technology, and the Environment in Latin America’s Long Cold War.

“Chile Underground pushes the history of technology beyond its usual geographies, showing how transnational techno-political currents—from France to Chile—were reworked through dictatorship, labor, and materialities that trace the circuits of the city. It offers a rare view of how mobility systems shape not just urban space but political authority, gendered labor, and patterns of everyday movement.”—Mónica Humeres, Technology and CultureHonorable Mention for the 2025 Best Book in Urban History, sponsored by the Urban History Association“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