PW: In Tank, you go to great lengths to set the stage for the tank's origins in the early 20th century. What do you see as some of its forerunners in the 19th century or earlier?
Wright: This is a machine that was engineered after H.G. Wells had predicted its existence in a story that was published before the First World War. There are extraordinary records of people in the 1850s—blacksmiths in rural pubs in England writing up to Parliament saying they'd invented this new sort of coke-fueled war chariot. Then there are earlier examples like Leonardo da Vinci's war cart. The Scottish used war carts; the ironclad ships of the American Civil War were cited. So, the idea of armored mobility which is also capable of firing—I mean, that's what a tank is, mobility, firepower and protection—that idea had been around before, but not with the technology that was used at the time.
PW: And you argue that, when finally deployed, its impact was as much psychological as it was physical—and continues to be so.
Wright: Hitler loved tanks. Right in the midst of his worst times on the Eastern Front, he was fantasizing about monstrous machines of vast tonnage that required special railway tracks or roads, and which would have broken all the bridges in Russia if they ever went on them. Mussolini liked nothing better than to stand on a tank and be a fool. That idea of the tank not just as something used in a specific military operation, but as something that terrifies, and compels by terrifying, has always been an essential part of the machine. If you're doing peacekeeping operations (this is what the Americans found in Bosnia) put a tank on a bridge. Nobody knows what it will do, but it sure looks like it will do something. So aside from its role in warfare, it has had this parallel cultural life as the most enormous emblem, by the end of the 20th century, of state power.
PW: Yet, in a world of downsizing armies and increasingly steep obsolescence curves, don't changing mechanics play a role?
Wright: There are lots of books about sprockets and calipers and what armor can do, and I didn't want to do that. This book really belongs in that wave of optimism that came up after the end of the Cold War. There was so much talk then about how we were going to dismantle the capabilities of the Cold War, and, indeed, we did so. I've seen NATO tanks being destroyed at various military bases. What I tried to do, in that same spirit, was to say: let's take this thing to pieces; if it comes out of the cultural imagination, let's dismantle it though its cultural dimensions. I don't think that when you write about war you need to be on the side of war.
PW: Will the tank then have a place in 21st century society—perhaps in ways other than those for which it was originally intended?
Wright: The idea of the tank as this powerful thing is dispersing into civilian life in a variety of ways. The language of the tank is becoming very prevalent in brochures from car manufacturers. People selling SUVs often describe the tank-like abilities of this machine that enables you to sit high up above people in the street and give you extra protection. Some tank manufacturers have tried to convert their machines into things like firefighting equipment—that's happened in Eastern Europe.
