On a farther shore : the life and legacy of Rachel Carson

The Resource On a farther shore : the life and legacy of Rachel Carson
Label
On a farther shore : the life and legacy of Rachel Carson
Title remainder
the life and legacy of Rachel Carson
Statement of responsibility
William Souder
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the environmental movement. She loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries, including the international bestseller The sea around us. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world. Rachel Carson began work on Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a dizzying array of synthetic pesticides had come into use. Leading this chemical onslaught was the insecticide DDT, whose inventor had won a Nobel Prize for its discovery. Effective against crop pests as well as insects that transmitted human diseases such as typhus and malaria, DDT had at first appeared safe. But as its use expanded, alarming reports surfaced of collateral damage to fish, birds, and other wildlife. Silent Spring was a chilling indictment of DDT and its effects, which were lasting, widespread, and lethal. Published in 1962, Silent Spring shocked the public and forced the government to take action-despite a withering attack on Carson from the chemicals industry. The book awakened the world to the heedless contamination of the environment and eventually led to the establishment of the EPA and to the banning of DDT and a host of related pesticides. By drawing frightening parallels between dangerous chemicals and the then-pervasive fallout from nuclear testing, Carson opened a fault line between the gentle ideal of conservation and the more urgent new concept of environmentalism
Storyline
Tone
Writing style
Award
New York Times Notable Book, 2012.
Biography type
individual biography
Cataloging source
DLC
Dewey number
570.9
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • portraits
  • plates
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Target audience
adult

Context

Context of On a farther shore : the life and legacy of Rachel Carson

Work of

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