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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The smog beast wafted into downtown Los Angeles on July 26, 1943. Nobody knew what it was. Secretaries rubbed their eyes. Traffic cops seemed to disappear in the mysterious haze. Were Japanese saboteurs responsible? A reckless factory? The truth was much worse--it came from within, from Southern California's burgeoning car-addicted, suburban lifestyle.

Smogtown is the story of pollution, progress, and how an optimistic people confronted the epic struggle against airborne poisons barraging their hometowns. With wit, verve, and a fresh look at history, California based journalists Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly highlight the bold personalities involved, the corporate- tainted science, the terrifying health costs, the attempts at cleanup, and how the smog battle helped mold the modern-day culture of Los Angeles. There are scofflaws aplenty and dirty deals, plus murders, suicides, spiritual despair, and an ever-present paranoia about mass disaster.

Brimming with historic photographs, forgotten anecdotes, and new revelations about our environmentally precarious present, Smogtown is a journalistic classic for the modern age.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars

A wonderful surprise! October 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I must admit that what first drew me to this book was its cover. When I saw that it was a history of LA pollution, I almost put it down because I was afraid to read more bad news about how the world is falling apart. I am so glad I gave it a chance, though, because this book is amazing! It is scandalous and tightly written, filled with captivating anecdotes and charged with style!

5 out of 5 stars

"amazing, a gripping story well told," "zany and provocative," "accessible," "sexxy," "historical heft," "intriguing" October 2, 2008
"Remember those great 1950s horror movies, when some superpowerful creature menaced a city while the citizens panicked, law enforcement officials bumbled, politicians pontificated, and plucky scientists worked at a fever pitch to find something, anything, to kill the monster? That's pretty much the feel of this remarkably entertaining and informative chronicle of the birth and--so far--inexorable evolution of smog ... This book is just amazing, a gripping story well told, with the requisite plucky scientists (including Arie Haagen-Smit, a Dutch biochemist who was "the Elvis of his field"), hapless politicians, and a nebulous biochemical villain who just will not be stopped." - BOOKLIST (Starred)

"A panorama of the Los Angeles skyline used to often resemble a poorly developed roll of film, cut through the middle with a view-obscuring brown smudge. Welcome to "Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles," in which Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly demonstrate that our current air quality is a free-breathing dream compared to the nightmare that enveloped the city for a good portion of the last century ... "Smogtown" is a regional history for the layperson, focusing slightly more on civic drama and scandal than hard science and legislative details ... Jacobs and Kelly bring a combination of alt-weekly sensibility and public service gravitas to their account. Evidenced by chapter titles like "Bouffants & Stethoscopes" and "The Wizard of Ozone," the authors apply humor to a grave subject ... However, the book is not lacking in historical heft. Instead, style delivers substance in true Hollywood fashion, with character-driven plots draped in glamour and sensation. Whether we learn about photochemical pollution via a renegade Caltech scientist or travel with a group of Beverly Hills socialites as they embrace environmental activism, the history of smog has never been so sexy..." - LOS ANGELES TIMES

"This colorful history of smog in Los Angeles begins in the 1940s and ends with a warning call for action. Self-proclaimed "survivors" of "L.A.'s greatest crisis," journalist Jacobs (Wheeling the Deal: The Outrageous Legend of Gordon Zahler, Hollywood's Flashiest Quadriplegic) and California Energy Circuit senior correspondent Kelly (Home Safe Home: How to Make Your Home Environmentally Safe) ... dredge up the story of smog in all its hazy--and sometimes humorous--permutations ... In this tale of underhanded deals, gritty politics, community organizing and burgeoning environmentalism, the corruption is plentiful and the subplots replete with intrigue ... the authors offer a zany and provocative cultural history." - KIRKUS

"Encapsulating deftly the worldview, historical context, and public psychology of Southern Californians over a number of decades, ... Jacobs and Kelly examine the approaches they've made to the region's chronic pollution issues, many of which presage current, nation-wide trends in both pollution and its "Greening." With casual language and a cinematic sense of the dramatic, Jacobs and Kelly detail the buildup to the famous orange-brown L.A. smog of the 1950s and 1960s: "Sometime in the late 1950s, legend had it hat a hen laid an egg that L.A. pollution unaccountably turned green." ... Finished with a particularly powerful, forward-looking epilogue, this friendly, accessible history should appeal to any American environmentalist." - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"... a meticulous chronicle of the city's signature airborne grime and of the civic and social forces that emerged to stop it ... describes a decidedly dreary Los Angeles: Patio furniture fades, flowers die, and a man's coral-colored tie turns bluish-purple over the course of an afternoon--all due to the smog that rolled into the city quite unannounced one morning in 1943. "The blocked skies," write Jacobs and Kelly, "were tantamount to acne on a beauty queen."... the authors toss in a dose of gallows humor and a light brushing of melodrama. The smog is personified as a "beast you couldn't stab . . . cunning and silent," with scientists "jousting" to defeat it. Such instances remind one of the voice-over from Dragnet, and it's hard not to laugh when imagining Joe Friday intoning, "Deep within Disneyland in Anaheim, California, stands Tomorrowland." But the point of Smogtown is well made: that the truth really is inconvenient ... The story of Smogtown is that of a city vying against time to reconcile incommensurables ... " - BOOKFORUM

"The narrative that emerges is more than a tale of a region and a populace besieged by smog; it is also a parable for a nation beset by environmental and social problems ... Among the pleasures of this well-researched cultural history is revisiting the past by way of old newspaper articles and archival material, which expose both hapless guesses and dogged persistence on the way to smog literacy." - SLATE

"The tale of one American city's epic struggle with smog may not strike you as the most interesting of reads ... But when that city is Los Angeles, things become much more complicated...and, I might as well say it, sexy ... Jacobs and ... Kelly provide a well-documented, highly engaging, and widely relevant account ... Placed firmly in the tradition of good old muckraking journalism, Smogtown covers over sixty years of pollution making and pollution fighting in Los Angeles. Despite its clear intention of making a case for environmental awareness and action, Smogtown is not your typical "green's" diatribe against big business and weak government. No, Jacobs and Kelly are much smarter-and fairer-than that in this book ... Jacobs and Kelly train the spotlight on southern Californians themselves as key contributors to the very problem that has damaged so many aspects of life in the area. Because of this focus on the human element, Smogtown plays out like a soap opera, with a cast of characters ranging from arch-villains to valiant heroes ... The authors' historical story exposes the roots and rampages of smog, how a prodigious population explosion and growing consumption "essentially...turned nature against itself." - SUSTAINABLOG

"Hip and lively," "an intriguing social history of an environmental problem that won't go away." Recommended. - LIBRARY JOURNAL