American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn [Hardcover]

Ted Steinberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2006

Americans are locked in a love-hate relationship with their lawns, and Ted Steinberg tells you why.

The rise of the perfect lawn represents one of the most profound transformations in the history of the American landscape. Today the lawn is one of America's leading "crops," outstripping cotton in acres by a factor of two. American Green, Ted Steinberg's witty exposé of this sometimes bizarre phenomenon, traces the history of the lawn from its explosion in the postwar suburban community of Levittown—just miles from where Steinberg grew up—to the present love affair with turf colorants, leaf blowers, and riding mowers. For half a century, Americans have been on a quest for the greenest, weed-free, ultra-trim turf imaginable. But perfection has its costs. Blending muckraking journalism and social history, Steinberg looks at both the lighter and the darker side of the all-American landscape, from mower accidents and pesticide poisonings to lawn-mower racing and the man so addicted to perfection that he re-created Augusta's 12th hole in his backyard. 40 illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Apartment-dwelling urbanites may be surprised to learn how significant lawn care is to the American economy, generating more than $10 billion in annual sales of pesticides, fertilizers and other products. Steinberg, an environmental historian, is aiming for the grassy equivalent of Fast Food Nation, with one key difference—while people know junk food isn't good for them, they may not be aware that most lawn care products are not only unnecessary but may actually harm soil and turf. He particularly damns the lawnmower industry, revealing how manufacturers "worked tirelessly to mislead the American public" for years in order to avoid the expense of installing safety features that could prevent severed fingers. Steinberg's subjects range from the postwar boom in suburban lawns to contemporary debates over noisy leaf blowers, and he mixes cultural history with personal lawn-related experiences in Long Island and Ohio, where some people maintain putting greens in their backyards. (Not surprisingly, Steinberg points out, golf courses are "the most intensively managed lawns in America.") There's plenty of muckraking outrage, but it's delivered in a friendly, engaging voice that might just win over skeptics. 40 illus. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Infinitely more interesting than watching grass grow, Steinberg's study of grass becomes a rueful and revealing commentary on America's nearly myopic devotion to acquiring and maintaining the perfect lawn. Forget your purple waves of grain; America's predominant landscape feature is a lush carpet of pristine green grass mowed so short it couldn't wave if it wanted to. Tracing the sociological roots of this horticultural phenomenon from the burgeoning post-World War II cookie-cutter suburbs with their postage-stamp lawns to today's manicured, multiacre estates, Steinberg illustrates how and why American home owners have elevated their fascination with this humble plant into an obsessive Grail-like quest. From mowers to blowers, weeds to water, crabgrass to bluegrass, Steinberg dishes the dirt on the products and practices that get results, not all of them in the home owner's--or the planet's--best interest. Balancing his sardonic, tongue-in-cheek wit with an investigative reporter's penchant for revelatory journalism, Steinberg offers an expose that is as entertaining as it is instructive. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton; 1st ed edition (March 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393060845
• ISBN-13: 978-0393060843
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #778,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard-hitting, funny, insightful, and thought-provoking, March 17, 2006

By 

Some call me Tim (Cleveland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn (Hardcover)

This is a brilliant book from one of the greatest environmental historians writing today. Combining muck-raking expose, insightful cultural and social history, and a wonderful sense of humor, it is a real page-turner. It will change the way you look at your -- and your neighbor's -- front yard forever.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You don't have to water your lawn everday, September 29, 2006

By 

J. Liesenfelt (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn (Hardcover)

As a reader of Crabgrass Frontier many years ago, I always knew that our lawns today are much, much different than what Americans of the first 150 years would know and while sitting through a recent City Council meeting in which it was determined that one subdivision was watering their lawns with about 14 feet of water a year, I knew there had to be a better way to maintain your lawn. Steinberg takes you from the history of lawns to history of lawn care. Along the way, Steinberg exposes you to some of the obsessive behavior of lawn care fanatics to the efforts of the anti-leaf blower campaigns. Steinberg exposes that most of our green lawns and lawn care habits are formed by marketing of companies likes Scotts and LawnChem or rely on plentiful low cost labor. Steinberg takes the lawn mower industry to task over mower safety (in a chapter that can be hard to read, especially if you have kids). Towards the end, Steinberg even takes on the native plant supporters, before telling you about his father's "Enlightenment Lawn."

As one who doesn't fertilize, water and spread bug killer on the lawn excessively, I can feel a bit alone in the neighborhood, however, Steinberg's book lets me know that I have plenty of company

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty expose of the American lawn, July 3, 2007

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn (Paperback)

This book makes it clear that Americans are very odd people, at least when it comes to lawns. Not only do Americans like to have patches of green around their homes, but they like *big* patches of green that require lots of attention to keep green.

In this book, Ted Steinberg tells you everything that you might want to know about these lawns. He begins the story with the cookie-cutter homes and lawns of Levittowns. These aspired to reproduce English formal gardens in the New World, but in a mass-produced way. Then Steinberg moves to the spread of lawns across the country, and the extensive use of power lawnmowers, fertilizers and pesticides, and intensive watering. For many Americans, lawn care borders on the obsessive-compulsive, and this is fed by the lawn care industry, especially Scotts. Golf courses represent another, equally compulsive, variation on the home lawn theme.

This book is a well-written expose of the American lawn. It's also quite funny in two ways. First, Americans are funny when they take care of the lawns, so Steinberg can stick just to the facts and be funny. Second, he is good at making funny side comments, often tongue-in-cheek.

There are serious sides. The environmental consequences of the American lawn include intensive water use in the desert southwest, lawn chemical runoff, lawnmower air pollution, leaf-blower noise pollution, and the spread of invasive species at the expense of native species. Lawns also come at a significant cost in safety, thanks to power mowers, especially riding mowers.

After that indictment, Steinberg concludes with a vision of eco-friendly, safe landscaping - - one that even includes lawns.