About the Author

James Howard Kunstler is the author of eight novels. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and an editor for Rolling Stone, and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Sunday Magazine. He lives in upstate New York.

Reviews

Robert Taylor Boston Globe A wonderfully entertaining useful and provocative account of the American environment by the auto, suburban developers, purblind zoning and corporate pirates.

Bill McKibben author of The End of Nature A Funny, Angry, Colossally Important Tour of Our Built Landscape, Our Human Ecology.

The New Yorker A serious attempt to point out ways future builders can avoid the errors that have marred the American landscape.

James G. Garrison The Christian Science Monitor Contributes to a discussion our society must hold if we are to shape our world as it continues to change at a dizzying pace.

Michiko Kakutani The New York Times Provocative and entertaining.

The New Yorker A serious attempt to point out ways future builders can avoid the errors that have marred the American landscape.
Bill McKibben author of The End of Nature A Funny, Angry, Colossally Important Tour of Our Built Landscape, Our Human Ecology.
James G. Garrison The Christian Science Monitor Contributes to a discussion our society must hold if we are to shape our world as it continues to change at a dizzying pace.
Michiko Kakutani The New York Times Provocative and entertaining.
Robert Taylor Boston Globe A wonderfully entertaining useful and provocative account of the American environment by the auto, suburban developers, purblind zoning and corporate pirates.

In this inconsistent but provocative analysis, Kunstler ( Blood Solstice ), a novelist and journalist, mixes memoir, historical essay and reporting to condemn the car-dependent suburbanization of America. Kunstler, who writes ably, casts a very wide net: he finds the roots of American individualism in pre-colonial property ownership, decries the abstracting influence of modernism on city architecture and slams road-builder Robert Moses to support his contention that suburbia is a social environment without soul. He offers an intriguing history of the decline of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., his hometown, describes trips to failing Detroit and well-planned Portland, Ore., and dissects ``capitals of unreality'' like Disney World and Atlantic City. His worthy but sketchily described solutions--a sustainable economy, better neighborhood development and preservation of the countryside--could, however, each merit a book. (June)