Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Despite condemnation in the press and heavy-handed attempts by the chemical industry to ban the book, Carson succeeded in creating a new public awareness of the ...
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Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Despite condemnation in the press and heavy-handed attempts by the chemical industry to ban the book, Carson succeeded in creating a new public awareness of the environment which led to changes in government and inspired the ecological movement. It is thanks to this book, and the help of many environmentalists, that harmful pesticides such as DDT were banned from use in the US and countries around the world. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Lord Shackleton, a preface by World Wildlife Fund founder Julian Huxley, and an afterword by Carson's biographer Linda Lear.
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This book is about human interference with Nature without considering the consequences. It is a sort of like the Meditations of St John Donne before his death March 31, 1631 from Stomach Cancer--"no man is an Island---" for we and all the earth are inter-related and one cannot do without the other.
Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, also died in Silver Springs, Maryland from a number of cancers that ate up her body that spread to all parts of her body 14 April 1964. This book is her great gift and masterpiece to all living things of the Earth. She speaks (in film) and writes with great authority of her knowledge of Ecology of which she maybe said to be the founder of this science.
It complains of people, who are anti-science naysayers who refuse to accept proven scientific truths and facts like global warming and that the Holocaust never took place who allow and dump synthetic poisons into the environment untested and then cannot correct things when things go wrong----people are still dying from cancers today because of the Atom Bomb tests in the 1940s-1950 not to mention Hiroshima--the idiots of the day did not consider that in open air that fallout is spread by the winds --so what happens in Japan also affects the US and the rest of the earth from the fallout.
This author of this review witnessed the great use of DDT from 1930s when it was first made to the stopping of use in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was great for killing mosquitoes and did help eradicate Malaria from the United States and perhaps North American as a whole but it was an insidious poison---it not only killed off mosquitoes--it cause the near extinction of many types of birds --especially pelicans who cane down with what some called the egg shell syndrome in which the shells were so thin that they could not contain the egg contain there in shortly after being layed. If the full truth be known --it possibly could be the cause of many human fertility problems--especially in men. Although not noted --it also caused the near extinction of Spiranthese Orchid species which mosquitoes pollinate (and you thought only bees pollinate plants?). IT was considered something like a miracle drug---people were sprayed and even bathed it ; their food sprayed with it --even while they were eating the food.
Like the Atom bomb--DDT spread throughout the earth- throughout the food chain and continues to this day to do so until it finally degrades. DDT was banned in another countries but chemical Companies who made it and sold it in the US continued to make it and sell it in other countries and was very useful in the Pacific Islands as Guadalcanal (of WWII memory)
DDT caused reproductive problems and cancers throughout the food chain and today could be according to this authors continuing research--just one of the causes of one of the poisons responsible Dementia and Alzheimer in humans let alone cancers. The authors hypothetical theory is based on observations he has observed over some 30 years in hospitals and the result of after the attempted assassination of a leader in the Baltic area some years back.
Too many people who are suppose to be highly intelligent are like new born babies---they cannot or just do not think things through so if it is out of sight--it is out of mind. Carson predicted that one day this kind of thinking will cause the death of all living things on earth and it will become an empty planet like many of the other planets we see in our solar system and place in the outer spirals of the Milky Way Galaxy. Others before her also predicted similarly but not from poisons but from over population from lack of sufficient food to feed the population--a them of the movie and book--Soylent Green based on real scientific facts as the case of the Laysan Island, Hawaii Rabbits who ate themselves out of house and home--so that nothing was left to eat but themselves as cannibals.
Andrea L
Feb 17, 2015
The Classic
We hear about this book but don't seem to get around to reading it as there is so much else to absorb about the environment. A timeless, compelling, and "standard" work that continues to provoke and inspire.
Fiona W
Dec 13, 2012
As promised
The book was as described and arrived promptly. I am fully satisfied with this purchase.
Danita O
Aug 2, 2012
Dated
This book was an important study at the time but it is very dated now
Estibaliz
Jun 1, 2012
First class book
Chemicals are threatening the whole environment. Plants, animals and human beings are in danger because of greedy and ignorance. The rise of cancer, and rare alergies and respiratory diseases could be exaplained by the abuse of chemicals.
