Reddit reviews The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession

I once had to read a whole novel about lawns for a history class.

(It actually was an interesting book though)

>Lawns. People putting so much time and money into large patches of grass of uniform length

Which they virtually NEVER use for any of the purposes they purportedly have said "lawns".

But it's part of the whole post WWII "American Dream Home" package sold to returning GI's and other Greatest/Silent generation members via TV shows (along with the white picket fence, etc).

There are several good books on this, including The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession

by Virginia Scharf, and American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg.

There are several driving factors in the US, but among the major ones are the development of an industry around lawn care (in the late 19th century) and the association of a well-kept lawn with affluence. After all, if you didn't have to sow crops on your land you were clearly better off than those who did.

Me? I live on 3/4 acre and have as little lawn as possible. In fact, we removed about 25% of what was in turf when we moved in a decade ago. The only reason we maintain any at all is to avoid bothering the neighbors, who all tend to their lawns with much more gusto than we do our patch of clover and dandelions. I hate chemical-laden, high-maintenence, monocultural grass. Most of our lot is in native plantings, brush, marsh, or gardens that produce food and habitat.

https://www.amazon.com/Lawn-History-American-Obsession/dp/1560984066/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500922518&sr=8-2&keywords=lawn+history If you want to buy a book on it... the short of it was originally based on English Estates.