I n 1962, a book invited its readers to imagine an American town “where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings . . . The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards, where, in spring white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines.”1