Silent Spring
The 1962 book on pesticides that began the modern environmental movement.
Carson assembled the evidence that DDT and its relatives were accumulating through food chains, killing birds and reaching human tissue, and published it in 1962 against fierce opposition from the chemical industry. The book’s method is patient documentation rather than polemic; its effect was a US ban on DDT and the environmental movement itself.
Recommended by 2 People
Naomi Klein
Carson's book draws its enduring power from the combination of her deep love for the natural world and her indignation at the attacks waged upon it by the chemical industry. A former marine biologist, Carson was battling an aggressive cancer when she wrote this 1962 masterpiece.
Article · August 2017
John Kerry
The book speaks to not just an important issue – our environment – but how we can all make changes in our communities and in our societies. It speaks to how individuals can change things and also focus on a particular injustice – environmental health risks.
Interview · August 2011
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