Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places

First--tone: He uses the personna of "the explorer" throughout, the explorer walks and bikes and examines lines (electric, telegraph, telephone, fence), roads, towns, etc. The explorer is definitely urban and politically liberal. That doesn't bother me, but the constant certitude does. Because the "explorer" is an abstraction there's no humanity for the reader to identify with as a counterweight when the explorer's facts are wrong. (Compare him with Mr. Edward Hoagland in "Compass Points" who explicitly takes positions and is very, very human. You respect the man even though you disagree with his views.)

Second--what facts do I consider wrong? * Differences over fencing did not contribute to the Civil War. * The Constitution does not prohibit road building, it explicitly (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) gives Congress the power to establish post-offices and post roads. As I was taught in high school history, Congress appropriated money to build the "National Road" in Jefferson's administration. (I did have to doublecheck my facts by doing an Net search.) *Although there were legitimate military benefits to the interstate highway system, in Mr. Stilgoe's tale "Congress built the system as a weapon, as a military highway, because it feared the enduring power of the constitutional prohibition against building ordinary roads." [p. 96] * Stilgoe also falls for the urban legend (see http://www.snopes.com) that the roads were planned to be used as emergency landing strips for B-52's.

It's a tribute to the clear writing and the different subject matter that I finished the book.


Fragmenties?   July 18, 2000
 18 out of 19 found this review helpful

A thought-provoking introduction to reading the built environment by close observation. However, Stilgoe's attitude is a bit elitist. The "explorer" in his parlance is vastly superior to us ordinary humans. I don't think as few people as he imagines pay attention to the edges and fringes of highways, strip malls and industrial parks.

The thing that really threw me? He twice mentions "Fragmenties", an invasive introduced plant. Unless fragmenties is a really localized phenomenon - localized to where Stilgoe bicycles only, I think he's referring to Phragmites a native grass gone invasive at least partly due to reduced salinity in salt marshes cut off from the twice daily tidal flooding. So, take what he says with a grain of salt and check other references.

If you want inspiration to go out there and look around in the urban clutter to see what's really there, try One Square Mile on the Atlantic Coast: An Artist's Journal of the New Jersey Shore by John R. Quinn.


Curt Raffi   May 3, 2000
 12 out of 14 found this review helpful

John Stilgoe once again captures the imagination of the reader and encourages us to truly "see", not just "inhabit" the world that lies all around us.

As in his other works, he teaches us that history and archaeology are not just a part of musty museums, but of the every day built environment. There is a history behind everything that we come across in our daily lives and he wants us to take a second as a child might and think about the environment in which we live.

Having had the opportunity to take classes he taught at Harvard, this book enabled me to reenter his world of delicate insight and deep knowledge about what many in our society simply overlook or have forgotten.

If you like pop culture, history, walking down forgotten railroad beds or simply enjoy driving down unknown roads, Stilgoe will capture you.