The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession

(Publishers Weekly) - In the 18th-century English landscape, a folly was an extravagant building or ruin. In the 20th-century American landscape, the folly had to be the lawn.
Jenkins's account gets off to a slightly slow start as she follows the lawn from its earliest beginnings as a simplified version of English romantic parks in the 19th century to the smooth fairway aesthetic fostered by the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) in the early 20th. But from then on, The Lawn is a quirky, thoroughly enjoyable look at man vs. nature, man vs. woman, and man vs. the Joneses. Continued