A book exploring suburban living as a form of self-isolation from the city's real or perceived dangers has particular resonance today. As the social and political connotations of quarantine play out in the news daily, a history of architecture's role in Americans' flight from proximity seems prescient. While the U.S. suburb and its architecture have been covered almost exhaustively, Indoor America is the first book to view this subject through the lens of interiority. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from architectural and urban history, sociology, and media studies, Andrea Vesentini argues that the process of postwar suburbanization depended on deliberate strategies of encapsulation, introversion, and interiorization.

Containing seven briskly paced chapters, this lively and engaging book begins with the proliferation of private car ownership in the early twentieth century and the construction of the Interstate Highway System after World War II. Building on the work of Dianne Harris...

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