“ American Eden moves luminously through landscapes of history, literature, biography, and design theory. . . . fusing sharp-edged analysis and graceful American prose.” —Kevin Starr, author of Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Bridge “Informative and absolutely engrossing.”  —Ross King, author of Brunelleschi's Dome   Garden designer and historian Wade Graham offers a unique vision of the story of America in this riveting exploration of the nation’s gardens and the visionaries behind them, from Thomas Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden, Fredrick Law Olmsted’s expansive Central Park to Martha Stewart’s how-to landscaping guides. In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky, Simon Schama, and Michael Pollan, Graham delivers a sweeping social history that examines our nation’s history from an overlooked vantage point, illuminating anew the living drama of American self-creation. *Starred Review* Garden designer and historian Graham takes a panoramic perspective in his bold interpretation of the form, function, and meaning of American gardens. Thomas Jefferson is the first, and most complex, of the many pioneering gardeners Graham incisively profiles, and Graham’s frank dissection of the profound paradoxes implicit in Jefferson’s landscape vision for Monticello in a time of slavery and genocide against Native Americans sets the groundwork for his central insight, the fact that wilderness was a catalyst for the American imagination even as we rapidly destroyed it. Other intriguing garden designers include the nineteenth-century advocates for middle-class gardens as “emblems of virtue” A. J. Downing and Charles Platt, and their heir, the ever-ambitious Martha Stewart, as well as Beatrix Jones Farrand, Jens Jensen, and Lawrence Halprin. As Graham unwinds the DNA of American garden design from grandiose to utilitarian, he matches garden aesthetics with the social mores of each era to surprising effect. His discussion of the pastoral dream underlying suburban sprawl is of particular resonance, and his comparisons between Eastern and Western gardens are fascinating. This blazingly fresh, critical, and ecologically astute masterwork brilliantly traces the great cycles of American life through a spectrum of gardens that embody our devotion to the art of cultivation for beauty and status, sanctuary and sustenance. --Donna Seaman “Accented by paintings, photographs and drawings, the author’s appealing commentary introduces a distinctive line of gardeners and foliage engineers whose work has become timeless. A bright, comprehensive horticultural celebration written with a fine eye for detail.” - Kirkus Reviews “ American Eden is deeply researched, passionately argued, and engagingly written. It ranges assuredly, and often acerbically, from Thomas Jefferson to Robert Smithson, from Andrew Jackson Downing to Martha Stewart. As Wade Graham expertly fillets everything from the 18th-century patrician’s pergolas to the post-war suburbanite’s tiki torches, it gradually dawns on the reader that he is revealing not merely the American garden, but the American soul.” - Tad Friend, author of Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor “Wade Graham gives an informative and absolutely engrossing narrative of how the garden is caught up in the crosscurrents of American history and culture. American Eden is an astute analysis―and, ultimately, a joyous celebration―of 400 years of ingenuity and vision. A better or more appropriate book to read in the park or on the deck can hardly be imagined.” - Ross King, author of Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture “A fascinating and illuminating tour of this American landscape.” - Publishers Weekly “This 459-page collection of landscape design history in this country is enjoyable reading. It is well researched, posing an interesting historic tie from the past to the present.” - Joel M. Lerner, Washington Post “Mr. Graham recounts his tale with considerable verve and a vast erudition in the history of gardening and the arts generally…. Among much else, Mr. Graham shows us that the history of how our nation grew can be found in what it has grown.” - John Steele Gordon, Wall Street Journal “We are what we plant, L.A.-based writer Wade Graham posits in his history of gardens. When he isn’t explaining the economic and cultural influences, he crafts fascinating profiles…. An engaging look at our own pieces of paradise.” - Ann Herold, Los Angeles Magazine “A shrewd, comprehensive and often entertaining guide…. Sure to be a scholarly as well as popular resource for years to come…. And its illustrations and photos tour of some of the world’s most ravishing gardens.” - Tricia Springstubb, Cleveland Plain Dealer “The most comprehensive and readable history ever written about the men and women who created the environments in which we now live…. will change the way you look not only at gardens,