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AMERICAN GREEN, LAWN PEOPLE.

Article Excerpt
AMERICAN GREEN: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn. By TED STEINBERG.XV 295 pp.; ills., notes, index. New York: W.W.Norton, 2006. $24.95 (cloth),ISBN 9780393060843; $16.95 (paper), ISBN 9780393329308.

LAWN PEOPLE: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. By Paul ROBBINS. xxi and 186 pp.; maps, diagrs., ills., bibliog., index. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 2007. $66.50 (cloth), ISBN 978592135783; $24.95 SBN 9781592135790.

The American lawn is under attack. Environmental and health groups tell us that decades of chemical and fertilizer applications are tainting our water supply and seeping into our bodies. Advocates of biodiversity increasingly look to these monocultural expanses as a major threat to ecological integrity and argue for a restoration of wildness in suburban spaces. In many circles the lawn has come to represent all that is wrong with suburbia--a mindless conformity that smothers both individuality and community, bringing the American public to its knees at the altar of commerce and consumerism. In response, the lawn-care industry has mounted an aggressive campaign to publicize its role in improving environmental stability and fostering family and community. Indeed, despite numerous attacks on the lawn, the industry is flourishing, and we continue to obsess over our lush mats of Kentucky, Saint Augustine, zoysia, and Bermuda grass.

Ted Steinberg and Paul Robbins are by no means disinterested observers of these debates, but they do take a serious and honest look at the roots of the American lawn and its continued stranglehold on residential...

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