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Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962) Silent Spring, an exhaustive dissertation on the environmental devastation wrought by the rampant use of pesticides throughout the country, spurred changes in government policy and was fundamental in launching the environmental movement. A landmark book of the 20th century, Silent Spring's enormous impact is still being felt today. A well-known writer when she began her exploration into the damage of DDT and other pesticides, Carson was unable to interest any magazines in her controversial work because they feared the loss of advertising. Eventually, The New Yorker serialized parts of Silent Spring before its publication. "As a direct result of the message in Silent Spring, President Kennedy set up a special panel of his Science Advisory Committee to study the problems of pesticides. The panel's report, when it appeared some months later, was a complete vindication of her thesis. Rereading her book today, one is aware that its implications are far broader than the immediate crisis with which it dealt" _Paul Brooks in the foreword to the 1987 edition "Her book is a cry to the reading public to help curb private and public programs which by use of poisons will end by destroying life on earth. ... Miss Carson, with the fervor of an Ezekiel, is trying to save nature and mankind"— The New York Times Book Review "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is now 35 years old. Written over the years 1958 to 1962, it took a hard look at the effects of insecticides and pesticides on songbird populations throughout the United States, whose declining numbers yielded the silence to which her title attests. "What happens in nature is not allowed to happen in the modern, chemical-drenched world," she writes, "where spraying destroys not only the insects but also their principal enemy, the birds. When later there is a resurgence of the insect population, as almost always happens, the birds are not there to keep their numbers in check." The publication of her impeccably reported text helped change that trend by setting off a wave of environmental legislation and galvanizing the nascent ecological movement. It is justly considered a classic, and it is well worth rereading today." MORE: Amazon |
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