Aside from perhaps one of the most painful styles of wtriting that i have had to personally put up with, i thought this book was full of interesting facts aside from the authors thoroughly cryptic and bold theories; this book requires patience that i, and probably many, simply do not have for in leisure reading, thus i apologize for not being near schizophrenic in depth of analysis. However, I( was intrigued with the styarting thought of where the lawn actually came from and how it evolved? Starting in France in the 1500’s, and moving to England in the 1700’s, the lawn became a majestic status symbol of only the highest classes of manor estates, diverging largely in ecology from the meadow to the monoculture, requiring intnesive labor and the mere job of cutting with a scythe was a job for multiple workers that would have taken many hours. The style of these lawns, Robbins did not describe very well, but one could imagine a typical/stereotypical English estate, whewreby the landscape would have extensive and would hjave showen character- nothing like today’s suburban l;awn. We progress to the Americas, taken here and showing up in Southern farm mansions, in addtion to New England court houses and common greens etc, as an evolved asset to social activities- not at all for the common person and their private property. What did the landscapes look like? Can you unimagine the lawn as Robbin would challenge your imagination? Downing’s respected taste and style of lawns were more or less congruent with the majestic aura of English estates; only lawns shoul be as flat and open as possible, as unnatural monocultural as possible. Olmsted brought it home with his influence on City parks all over the country, most notably New York City’s.
When considring the intrioduction of the lawn, the thought does not escape one’s mind of how this all escalated into the chemical lawn monoculture of today and the extent of it throughout suburbia everywhere. I believe this is a phenomenon that can be attampted to be explained by almopst any academioc discipline, but when taken all together, I think Robbin is only right in his last chapter when explaining that it perhaps, just sort of happened as a result of chaotic events and mentalities throughout American History, and not necessarily a product of anything signifant or symbolic, but certainly capitalism and conformitism/social human nature has influenced and maintained this random commonality throughout the nation. I believe that the rest cannot be explained, that it is phenomenon of evoltuion and mass-psychology that is simply too complex, (even for Robbins), to explain. Furthermore, of personal opinion, i believe that the environmentalism has almost nothing to do with it, and this reinforced by the fact that it simply has not prevailed as an issue amongst consumers or the industry that perpetuates and m,akes possible the associated environmental harm (though the later culprit can be understandable- their making a living afterall). I think the apolitical ecological thinking described so in depth by Robbins can be simply explained by his mentioning of the fact that people just simply do not have the time, or the assertion to make these choices as a priority over the ones that rule their life, like other people for example- Its simple and it makes sense.
