| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £1.10
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.10, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A compelling narrative.... Jackson traces the consequences of the predominantly North American process [of suburbanization] through three centuries of technological, economic and social innovation."--Philadelphia Inquirer
Product Description
Written in cuneiform on a clay tablet, this letter to the King of Persia in 539 B.C. represents the first extant expression of the suburban ideal. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
One thing to keep in mind when considering this book, however, is that (contrary to what others have said) it is *not* a history of suburbanization through the end of the 20th century. It is much more an explanation of the roots of 20th century suburbanization -- as they took form in the 19th century.
The author does an excellent job of explaning the cultural and technological conditions that existed in the 19th century which made the move the the perifery seem attractive and, above all, logical. Today, in the 21st century, we have a difficult time placing oursleves in the shoes of the aspiring 19th century home-owner. We get stuck on the question "How could they just leave their cities to rot?" This book takes us back to show us the ideals, hopes and dreams of the 19th cenury burghers -- which the author also expertly contrasts to 19th-century realities. In this way, Jackson shows us how the move to a tract-house on a winding lane named after a tree could only seem like the conquest of the new-world utopia to the train-hopping clerks who first embraced suburbia.
The brightest examples of these cultural trends are the author's description of the rising symbolic importance of the garden, as well as his emphasis on the media-images associated with the new "old" country gentry. Overall, he describes an America (ironically) in search of its "country" roots, while in the midst of the greatest urban/industrial boom the world has ever known. By placing the reader firmly in a world where the word "cab" connoted a horse and carriage and where "pollution" meant horse-dung, Jackson makes us aware that the suburbs arose out of a legitimate desire to improve living standards in a very real way.
In sharp contrast, to so many books on the same topic _The Crabgrass Frontier_ is not a vitrolic condemnation of selfishness or race-paranoia or consumer-madness. It is a cultural commentary on certain 19th mores which -- when taken to their logical extreme (as they were in the 20th century) -- have a profound effect on the geography of the modern American city.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
