| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 288 words from this article are provided below; about 493 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Nicholas Dagen Bloom. Suburban Alchemy: 1960s New Towns and the Transformation of the American Dream. (Urban Life and Urban Landscape Series.) Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 2001. Pp. x, 333. $27.95.

Nicholas Dagen Bloom's book joins a growing and important body of literature on the modern suburban community and its place in the American landscape. His study of three communities from the New Towns movement—Reston, Virginia; Columbia, Maryland; and Irvine, California—moves beyond the older suburban analysis, which pitted the suburbs against the traditional urban forms, and examines its subjects on their own terms. Bloom considers both the built environment and the reform ideals that shaped the New Towns. He follows their development over time and grades them not pass/fail but individually, against their own criteria, producing a balanced study of the three towns, which were a response to the critique of the GI Bill suburbs of the 1950s. 1

After a review of the received wisdom on the American suburb, Bloom explores the planning and design of each of his subject communities. His analysis of the roles of time and class gives a depth to his subject that is lacking in many of the older environmental-determinist studies, which often emphasize the built environment and minimize the impact of class, culture, and time period. This model attributed pathologies, problems, or changes to the suburban environment: conditions that were far more widespread, and that had deeper roots in the culture. Focusing narrowly on the geography and form of the built environment as the source of the civic, cultural, and social lives of the inhabitants, such critiques often failed to distinguish between the suburbs and their time-specific, socioeconomic, and national contexts. . . .

There are about 493 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.