The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. Leo Marx, 1964.
MARX, L. (1964) The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. Oxford University Press.
This book is a study of North American culture, conducted through a literary examination of various English-language books. Specifically, Marx focuses on pastoralism, that is, the idealization of rural and agrarian ways of life, in the American popular imagination. This pastoralism is, according to Marx, the root of many commonly held sentiments, attitudes and actions of Americans towards nature and against urban life. Therefore, the analysis that Marx provides is not only a very interesting exploration of English-language literature, but it provides some very powerful insights into the American psyche, and in a wider sense, in a human way of relating to nature that is a direct product of cultural influences.