American Dreamscape: The Pursuit of Happiness in Postwar Suburbia

In a spirited, often amusingly belligerent defense of the suburbs, Martinson vehemently rebuts what he sees as an overarching, mainstream cultural myth that U.S. suburbs are detrimental to the lives of their inhabitants and to society in general. While other new books--particularly Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened by Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen--have provided sophisticated critiques or defenses of the suburbs, Martinson approaches the topic with varying degrees of nuance and jackhammering. Drawing on postfeudal British terminology, he constructs a theory that breaks the U.S. population into six classes, with the most tension occurring between the two that he describes as Yeoman (working and middle classes) and Gentry (a cultural and often economic elite). Yeomen, he says, just want to own their own land and live their lives, while Gentry look down on them with condescension, frequently attacking them and their way of life. The Gentry ""are on a ceaseless power trip."" Sometimes Martinson is on target with his criticisms of antisuburban tirades--rightly pointing out that suburbs are not monolithic and vary enormously in nature and style--but all too often he takes a nearly paranoid view of the power of the Gentry, snidely lambasting the media and academia. He constantly invokes the notion of an American ideal of beauty--in the paintings of Thomas Cole and planned landscapes--that is more informed by myth than by the concrete reality of America. This problem is reinforced by a decision to not discuss issues of race or ethnic and cultural diversity. In the end, Martinson's argument is occasionally provocative, but unconvincing. (Sept.)