In this brilliant and original book, Adam Rome proposes both a new significance for postwar American suburbia and a new interpretation of postwar American environmentalism. Arguing that the uncontrolled spread of tracthouse suburbia was a driving force behind a new environmental consciousness,...Rome offers a profound insight into the development of an American land ethic."

--Robert Fishman, Taubman College of Architecture and Planning University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

"Too often, we forget that the history of environmentalism has as much to do with cities and suburbs - the places where most people now live - as it does with the rural or wild landscapes where many efforts to protect non-human nature have focused. In this important book, Adam Rome explores the complex processes by which rural areas were converted to suburban tract housing in the decades following World War II - transforming not just the American landscape, but American politics as well. It is a story with profound implications for the environmental challenges we now face."

--William Cronon, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"In a fascinating new look at suburbia, Adam Rome convincingly demonstrates that postwar suburbanization not only created sprawl, it ironically helped spawn the environmental movement that would struggle to contain it, sometimes with success, other times not."

--Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard University

Cambridge University Press Web Site, January, 2002

The Bulldozer in the Countryside is the first scholarly history of efforts to reduce the environmental costs of suburban development in the United States. The book offers a new account of two of the most important historical events in the period since World War II--the mass migration to the suburbs and the rise of the environmental movement. This work offers a valuable historical perspective for scholars, professionals, and citizens interested in the issue of suburban sprawl.