Geography of Nowhere - by James Howard Kunstler (Paperback)

About the Book

In this "eminently relevant and important book" (Library Journal), the author traces the evolution of America's landscape, where every place looks like no place in particular, and where accommodating the automobile jeopardizes the individual and the environment.

Book Synopsis

The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots.
In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

Review Quotes

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.

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.